Srinivas Aravamudan
Dean of Humanities, Duke University
Indiaspora Program Chair
Aravamudan specializes in British and French literature and is the author of Guru English: South Asian Religion In A Cosmopolitan Language (2007) and Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel (2012). His earlier work, Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency, 1688-1804, won the MLA Outstanding First Book Prize.
english.duke.edu/people?subpage=profile&Gurl=/aas/English&Uil=srinivas
Manish Bapna
Interim President, World Resources Institute
Bapna chairs WRI's management and executive teams and oversees the impact and quality of program strategies. A specialist in international development, rural poverty and natural resources, Bapna was formerly the executive director of the Bank Information Center (BIC) and a senior economist at the World Bank.
www.wri.org/profile/manish-bapna
"Desh" Deshpande
Venture Capitalist and Entrepreneur
Indiaspora Host Committee
Deshpande co-founded internet equipment manufacturer Sycamore Networks, the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT and the Deshpande Foundation. President Obama appointed Deshpande to the Co-Chairmanship of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in July 2010.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gururaj_Deshpande
Pawan Dhingra
Professor of Sociology, Tufts University
Pawan Dhingra is Professor of Sociology at Tufts University. He is the author of the award-winning book, Managing Multicultural Lives: Asian American Professionals and the Challenge of Multiple Identities, and most recently of Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream, which has been profiled on NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He also is Founding Curator and Senior Advisor of HomeSpun: Smithsonian Indian American Heritage Project at the Smithsonian Institution.
new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/departments/sociology/faculty_detail.dot?id=20701
Raj Goyle
Sr. Adv. Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation, Dir. Rubin Family Office
Raj Goyle is the Senior Advisor to the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation and a Director of the Rubin Family Office where he advises on philanthropic, political and financial matters. Goyle served two terms in the Kansas State House where he became the first Democrat in history to represent the district when he defeated a three-term Republican incumbent in 2006. Prior to his time in the Legislature, Goyle worked at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC where he led projects on a range of domestic policy issues and his work was featured in leading publications, including the Yale Law and Policy Journal and the Sunday New York Times. Goyle graduated from Harvard Law School and Duke University. Goyle's wife, Monica Arora, is a partner at White & Case, an international law firm. They have two daughters, Ana and Sara.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Goyle
Victor Menezes
Retired Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup
Victor Menezes retired as Senior Vice Chairman of Citigroup Inc. after a 32-year global career with the company. He was head of Citi’s Emerging Markets business with responsibility for its corporate and consumer businesses. He has headed Citi’s businesses and lived in India, Hong Kong, Europe and the U.S. Currently, he is Chairman of the Advisory Board for Citi India.
Mr. Menezes is a Senior Advisor with New Silk Route Partners, Ltd., an international private equity firm. Mr. Menezes is a board member of the MIT Corporation, Educational Testing Service, the American India Foundation, Catholic Charities and Eisenhower Fellowships. He is on the advisory boards of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, MIT Sloan and INSEAD.
Victor Menezes received his degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1970 and a Master of Science degree in finance and economics from the Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972
Devesh Kapur
Director of Center for Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania
Kapur's research examines local-global linkages in political and economic change in developing countries, particularly India, focusing on the role of domestic and international institutions and international migration. He is the coauthor of The World Bank: Its First Half Century.
www.polisci.upenn.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=150&Itemid=101
Ro Khanna
Counsel, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Khanna recently spent two years working for the Obama Administration as the Deputy Assistant Secretary at Commerce and serving the White House Business Council. Prior to his experience in Washington, he was an intellectual property attorney with O'Melveny & Myers.
www.rokhanna.com/
Priya Parker
Founder, Thrive Labs
Parker is a visionary, conflict mediator and dancer. She works with organizations and leaders to zero in on their core purpose and build out smarter strategies. Drawing on ten years of work in government, social enterprise and Track II diplomacy in the United States, India and the Middle East, Parker designs visioning and innovation labs that help organizations grow from the root. She speaks regularly on the Millennial generation.
priyaparker.com/
Arun Kumar
Partner; Member of the Board of Directors, KPMG LLP
Kumar also serves as the Director of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC). He is a co-editor of Kerala's Economy: Crouching Tiger, Sacred Cows.
www.linkedin.com/in/arunmkumar
Arvind Subramanian
Sr. Fellow, Peterson Inst. for Int. Econ. and the Center for Global Dev.
Subramanian’s book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance has received great praise, including Dr. Henry Kissinger’s comment that the book makes “a compelling argument that deserves wide attention.” Foreign Policy named him as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers in 2011. He was assistant director in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund.
www.iie.com/staff/author_bio.cfm?author_id=488
Jigar Shah
CEO, Carbon War Room
Shah is an expert on energy project finance, changing energy policy, working with entrenched stakeholders, and showing business leaders that clean energy technology makes business sense. He launched SunEdison in 2003 and pioneered the solar power services agreement (SPSA) model, which has turned solar services into a multi-billion dollar industry.
www.carbonwarroom.com/about-us/who-we-are/executive-team
Sanjiv Sidhu
Chairman, o9 Solutions
Sidhu also founded and served as chairman of i2 Technologies, a supply chain management software company.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanjiv_Sidhu
Sree Sreenivasan
Dean of Student Affairs, Columbia School of Journalism
Founding team member of Manhattan news site DNAinfo.com, Sreenivasan was formerly the Director of the Digital Media Program at Columbia a tech reporter for WNBC-TV and WNBC.com.
www.sree.net/bio.html
Chitra Wadhwani
Producer CBS This Morning
Chitra Wadhwani, who is based in New York, is a producer for CBS This Morning. She was previously the supervising producer for Charlie Rose, where she worked for ten years. She was born and brought up in Hong Kong. She graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.
indiaspora.org/participants
Nisha Desai Biswal
USAID, Assistant Administrator for Asia
Nisha Desai Biswal was sworn in as USAID's Assistant Administrator for Asia on September 20, 2010. In 2011, she was also appointed as a Member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on the People's Republic of China.
www.wadhwa.com/
Romesh Wadhwani
Chairman, Symphony Technology Group
Wadhwani founded software and services company Symphony Technology Group and directed its growth to a $2-billion-plus company today.
www.symphonytg.com/people/dr-romesh-wadhwani
Padmasree Warrior
Chief Technology Officer, Cisco Systems
Prior to Cisco, Warrior served four years as CTO of Motorola Systems. She was an early proponent of "Seamless Mobility" - the concept of having seamless communication across all facets of a person's life.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmasree_Warrior
Arjun Appadurai
Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University
During his academic career, Appadurai has held professorial chairs at Yale University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Pennsylvania, and has held visiting appointments at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), the University of Michigan, the University of Iowa, Columbia University and New York University. He has authored numerous books and scholarly articles including Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger and Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
www.arjunappadurai.org/
Rajmohan Gandhi
Research Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Gandhi has been engaged for half a century in efforts for trust-building, reconciliation and democracy and in battles against corruption and inequalities. These efforts, made in India and across the world, have involved writing, speaking, public interventions, and organizing dialogues. A former member of the Indian Parliament, Ghandi’s numerous books include a biography of his grandfather Mahatma Gandhi, Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire.
www.rajmohangandhi.com/
Sunil Garg
President, Exelon Power Corporation
Since joining Exelon in 2002, Garg has focused extensively on integration work, including process efficiencies and cost savings. Prior to Exelon, Garg served as an Assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and was appointed a White House Fellow by President Bill Clinton.
investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=111886267&ticker=EXC:US&previousCapId=296181&previousTitle=EXELON CORP
Anand Giridharadas
Author and Columnist
Giridharadas is the author of “India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking,” about returning to the India his parents left. He writes the “Currents” column for The New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune, and also writes for The New York Times Magazine. He is a former consultant for McKinsey & Company and later reported from Bombay for the Herald Tribune and The Times for four and a half years.
anand.ly/bio
Somini Sengupta
Journalist, The New York Times
Based in San Francisco, Sengupta covers technology issues. She was previously The Times’s bureau chief in New Delhi and Dakar and was the recipient of the 2004 George Polk Award for foreign reporting.
topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/somini_sengupta/index.html
Anshul Tewari
Founder and Editor in Chief, YouthKiAwaaz.com (YKA)
Since 2008, Tewari has grown YouthKiAwaaz.com to its position as India’s largest online platform for young people to express themselves on issues of importance. Anshul has extensive experience in citizen media, new media, social media and how to mobilize and engage young people in participatory and collaborative journalism to have a larger impact on a mass audience.
www.anshultewari.com/about/
Abraham George
Founder, The George Foundation (TGF)
Following a 25-year career in international business, George founded TGF to improve the welfare of economically and socially disadvantaged people. George’s interest in democracy led him to create the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, while his focus on environmental health drove him to an instrumental role in the removal of lead from gasoline in India. His most recent book “India Untouched: The forgotten face of rural poverty,” is based on his initial 10 years of experience working in rural areas of Tamil Nadu.
www.abrahamgeorge.blogspot.com/
Karl "Rick" Inderfurth
Senior Adviser and Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies, CSIS
Inderfurth served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs from 1997 to 2001. Prior to serving as an assistant secretary of state, Ambassador Inderfurth was the U.S. representative for special political affairs to the United Nations. He was also a deputy U.S. representative to the UN Security Council. Inderfurth is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Fulbright Association.
csis.org/expert/karl-f-inderfurth
Priya Natarajan
Professor, Departments of Astronomy & Physics, Yale University
Natarajan is a theoretical astrophysicist interested in cosmology, gravitational lensing and black hole physics. Her research involves mapping the detailed distribution of dark matter in the universe exploiting the bending of light en-route to us from distant galaxies. She is also actively engaged in deriving and understanding the mass assembly history of black holes over cosmic time. Natarajan is deeply interested in gender parity issues and developing strategies to enhance numerical and scientific literacy for the public at large.
www.astro.yale.edu/priya
Madhulika Sikka
Executive Producer, Morning Edition, NPR
Prior to joining public radio's most-listened-to program in 2006, Sikka was a producer at ABC’s Nightline. She is the recipient of four Emmys, two duPont awards, a Barone award, two Peabodys, three SAJA Awards and an NABJ Award. She was also the recipient of the India Abroad Publisher's Award for Special Excellence 2009.
www.npr.org/people/99818887/madhulika-sikka
Viswa Subbaraman
Artistic Director/Founder, Opera Vista
Subbaraman’s highlights as founder of Opera Vista, Houston's innovative contemporary opera company, include the world premiere of James Norman's Wake..., the Texas Premiere and historic New Orleans premiere of Amy Beach's Cabildo, and the creation of the annual Vista Competition for new opera. Subbaraman has served as Assistant Conductor of the Orchestre National de France where he assisted Kurt Masur and visiting guest conductors, such distinguished artists as Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, and Sir Colin Davis.
www.viswasubbaraman.com/
Satish K. Tripathi
President, University at Buffalo
An internationally distinguished researcher and transformative higher education leader, Tripathi served as UB’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs from 2004-11, and led the university in achieving significant growth in research activity, enhanced student quality and diversity, and an expanded international presence. Prior to UB, Tripathi served as dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California-Riverside and spent 19 years as a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
www.buffalo.edu/president/biography.html
Inderpal Grewal
Professor, Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Yale University
Grewal’s research interests include transnational feminist theory; gender and globalization, human rights; NGO’s and theories of civil society; theories of travel and mobility; South Asian cultural studies, and postcolonial feminism. She is the author of Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire and the Cultures of Travel and Transnational America: Feminisms, Diasporas, and (with Caren Kaplan) has written and edited Gender in a Transnational World: Introduction to Women’s Studies and Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational: Feminist Practices.
wgss.yale.edu/grewal
Sheena Iyengar
S.T. Lee Professor of Business, Columbia Business School
Iyengar is also Director of the Global Leadership Matrix (GLeaM) initiative and Research Director at the Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business at Columbia Business School. A world renowned expert on the subject of choice, her critically acclaimed book, The Art of Choosing, was a finalist for the 2010 Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Best Business Book of the Year Award, and was ranked #3 on Amazon.com’s Top Ten Business & Investing Books of 2010. Iyengar is also a member of the 2011Thinkers50, a global ranking of the top 50 management thinkers
www.columbia.edu/~ss957/about.shtml
Vaishali Sinha
Movie Director
Vaishali is the Co Director/Producer of the award winning feature documentary Made in India about the human stories behind the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate mothers to India. The film aired on PBS and has also been broadcast internationally. Her current projects include “Kashmir” a film about growing up in one of the world's most militarized regions, and she is also production coordinating and researching for “The Failed Revolution” (Dir: Richard Wormser), a film about the social changes of 1930s USA and the impact of the Cold War on those changes.
www.madeinindiamovie.com/the-filmmakers.html
Siddharth N. “Bobby” Mehta
CEO and President, TransUnion
Before TransUnion, Mehta was chairman and CEO of HSBC Finance. He was also the group managing director of HSBC Holdings. Prior to HSBC, Mehta served as senior vice president at The Boston Consulting Group and vice president of Citicorp’s information business division.
www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officerProfile?symbol=TRUN.N&officerId=1621114
Madhu S. Vuppuluri
President and CEO, Essar Americas
Vuppuluri has been instrumental since 1999 in building Essar’s presence in the Americas’ steel, mining and minerals, energy and BPO sectors with an investment outlay of more than $4 billion, and employing about 10,000 North Americans. Currently, he is spearheading the implementation of a $1.7 billion iron ore pellet project in Northern Minnesota.
www0.gsb.columbia.edu/students/organizations/saba/conferences/2010/speakers.html#62
Smitha Radhakrishnan
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Wellesley College
Radhakrishnan studies the cultural politics of globalization, especially as they intersect with gender, class and nation. Her first book, Appropriately Indian, is based on extensive interviews and ethnographic work with Indian IT professionals living in Mumbai, Bangalore, the Silicon Valley and South Africa. Radhakrishnan was a Global Fellow at UCLA’s International Institute and received a 2011-12 American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
www.appropriatelyindian.com/author/
Sachin Pilot
Minister of State for Communications and IT, Government of India
Son of the late Rajesh Pilot, Sachin was elected to the 14th Lower House of Parliament in 2004 making him the youngest MP in India. In his role as a Minister, Pilot strives hard to find scalable means of leveraging India’s IT and telecom infrastructure to facilitate inclusive growth especially in rural areas. After graduating from St. Stephens College in New Delhi, he worked at the Delhi Bureau of the BBC and subsequently went on to work for General Motors. Pilot completed his MBA Degree at the Wharton Business School where he specialized in multinational management and finance. In recognition of his professional accomplishments and commitment to society, he was selected as one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum in 2008.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Pilot
Aromar Revi
Director, Indian Institute of Human Settlements (IIHS)
Revi directs India’s prospective independent national University for Research and Innovation, addressing challenges of urbanisation via an integrated programme of education, research, training and advisory services. He has been a senior advisor to various ministries of the Government of India, consulted with a wide range of UN, multilateral, bilateral development and private sector institutions and works on economic, environmental and social change at global, regional and urban scales.
sites.google.com/a/iihs.co.in/jan2011/home/faculty/aromar-revi-bio
Dinesh C. Paliwal
Chairman, President and CEO, Harman International Industries
Paliwal has has worked and lived in six countries on four continents, including the United States, China, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, and India. Prior to his appointment as Harman’s CEO in 2007, he spent 22 years with ABB Group, where he last held the dual role of President of ABB Group and Chairman/CEO - ABB North America.
www.harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Groupleadership/Documents/Executive Committee/Dinesh Paliwal Bio - April 2012 (2).pdf
Shamsudeen Mustafa
Director of Operations and Programs, Seedco Financial Services
Prior to joining Seedco Financial, Mustafa worked as the Director of NYC Business Solutions, Upper Manhattan and Washington Heights Centers. He has been involved with domestic micro-lending programs in the US in various capacities for the past five years and serves as the Co-President of the Microfinance Club of New York.
mfcny.org/content/sham-mustafa
Sunil Kumar
Dean, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Kumar’s research includes performance evaluation and control of manufacturing systems, service operations, and communications networks. He joined the Chicago Booth faculty after spending 14 years on the faculty of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he was the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Operations, Information and Technology and senior associate dean for academic affairs.
president.uchicago.edu/deans/kumar.shtml
Preeta D. Bansal
Fmr Gen. Counsel and Sr. Policy Advisor, U.S. Office of Mgt. and Budget
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Bansal was a Partner and Head of the Appellate Litigation Practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP in New York City. She also served as the Solicitor General of the State of New York from 1999-2001. While in private practice from 2003-2009, Bansal served as a Commissioner of the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving as Chair in 2004-2005.
www.acus.gov/about/the-council/preeta-bansal/
Maya Ajmera
Founder, The Global Fund for Children
Under Ajmera’s seventeen years of leadership, GFC has awarded nearly $25 million in capital to innovative, community-based organizations working with some of the world’s most vulnerable children and youth and touching the lives of over 5 million children in 75 countries. She is an award winning children’s book author of more than 15 titles including Children from Australia to Zimbabwe, Faith, and To Be a Kid. In 2011, Ajmera was appointed a Visiting Scholar at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Ajmera
S. Srinivasan
Co-founder & Managing Trustee, Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST)
"Chinu" (pronounced “Cheenu”) has been involved with health care and pharma policy issues in India for over 34 years. LOCOST is a not-for-profit that makes generic generics and markets at low prices for NGOs and groups working with the poor in India. Chinu and LOCOST are active in policy advocacy especially on pharma pricing and rational medicine policy, and governance issues in clinical trials in India.
indiaspora.org/participants
Sonal Shah
Former Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation in the White House
Shah has spent her career as an entrepreneur and innovator in government, business and the non-profit sectors. She is the former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the first White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She also served on President Obama’s Transition Board overseeing the Technology, Innovation, Government Reform working group, led Google.org’s global development initiatives and co-founded Indicorps, a non-profit which offers fellowships for Indian-Americans to work on development projects in India.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonal_Shah_(economist)
Dr. Pat A. Basu
Chief Operating Officer and Chief Medical Officer, Virtual Radiologic
vRad is a $300 million, technology-enabled radiology practice with 440 radiologists providing medical care to over 8 million patients at over 2,700 hospitals nationwide. Prior to this executive position, Dr. Basu served as White House Fellow where he held a Top Secret Security Clearance and worked on aspects of the economic and health care agenda. To serve his country as a White House Fellow, Dr. Basu left his faculty appointments at Stanford University where he treated patients as a board-certified radiologist, conducted research and taught Stanford students.
www.vrad.com/ABOUTUS/vRadLeadershipTeam/PatABasuMD.aspx
Pavithra K. Mehta
Author, Filmmaker
Mehta is lead author of the book Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion [Berrett Koehler, 2011]. Her award-winning 2004 documentary also titled Infinite Vision tells the story of "Dr. V", Aravind's legendary founder. Mehta is a board member of the Aravind Eye Foundation, and Service Space, a non-profit that leverages the web to catalyze transformative service. She is co-editor of its news service DailyGood and cofounder of its pay-it-forward restaurant Karma Kitchen.
www.amazon.com/Pavithra-K.-Mehta/e/B005G0MG7O
Shiv Vikram Khemka
Chairman, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation
The Global Education & Leadership Foundation (tGELF) is committed to identifying, nurturing and supporting ethical altruistic leadership potential at school and colleges around the world. Khemka is also Vice Chairman of the SUN Group, a leading principal investor and private equity manager in India, Russia, and other emerging markets.
www.whartondubai09.com/bio-vikram.html
Jamshed Bharucha
President, Cooper Union
A cognitive neuroscientist, Bharucha has published extensively on the cognitive and neural underpinnings of music. He began his academic career at Dartmouth College, where he was named the John Wentworth Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and served in several leadership positions, including Associate Dean, Deputy Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. In 2002, Bharucha was appointed Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamshed_Bharucha
Dr. Nirav R. Shah
New York State Commissioner of Health
Dr. Shah is a nationally recognized thought leader in patient safety and quality, comparative effectiveness, and the methods needed to transition to lower-cost, patient-centered health care for the 21st century. Before becoming Commissioner, he was Attending Physician at Bellevue Hospital Center and Associate Investigator at the Geisinger Center for Health Research.
www.health.ny.gov/commissioner/bio/
Sadanand Dhume
Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
Dhume writes about South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. He is also a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in India and Indonesia and was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C.
www.aei.org/scholar/sadanand-dhume/
Reena Esmail
Composer
Esmail has won many awards including the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. She was a recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru grant and spent a year living in New Delhi where she was affiliated with the Faculty of Music and Fine Arts at Delhi University, and studied Hindustani vocal music with Gaurav Mazumdar. Her current work involves two new commissions for combinations of Indian and western instruments from The HUM Ensemble, as well as work on her Hindi-language opera, Meera, about the life of sixteenth century saint-poet, Mirabai.
musicians.yale.edu/reenaesmail/Bio
Sachi Shenoy
Co-Founder, Executive Director, Upaya Social Ventures
Shenoy has nearly a decade of experience in developing social enterprises to meet the needs of the poor and ultra poor, designing and implementing field interventions, and conducting social performance evaluations and investment advisory for a variety of organizations throughout Asia. Previously, she was Director of Global Programs at Unitus and Area Manager at SKS Microfinance.
www.upayasv.com/team
Sejal Hathi
CEO, Girls Helping Girls
Hathi is a current Yale student and co-founder of girltank. At age 15, she founded Girls Helping Girls, an international nonprofit that drives change by socially and economically empowering girls, in 22 countries. She has additionally served as a USAAmbassador for Ashoka, National Board of Directors member for Youth Service America and Girls for A Change, Youth Advisory Board member for State Farm Insurance and Board Member for State Farm Bank, and a founding member of the World Bank’s Youth, Development, & Peace Network of North America.
www.empoweragirl.org/pages/page.php?pageid=17
Bobby Ghosh
Editor-at-Large, TIME
Bobby Ghosh, editor-at-large for TIME, works closely with TIME international editor Jim Frederick to oversee all content in TIME’s international editions. Previously, Ghosh was TIME’s senior editor, managing TIME’s terrorism and intelligence reporting, world editor, Baghdad bureau chief and Iraq correspondent - spending more time in Baghdad than any other print reporter. He has also reported extensively in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Tunisia.
www.timemediakit.com/us/media/bios/ghosh.html
Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H.
C. Boyden Gray Assoc. Prof. Health Policy, Harvard School of Public Health
Dr. Jha is also the Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician at the VA Boston Healthcare System. Over the past five years, he has served as Special Advisor for Quality and Safety to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Jha’s major research interests lie in improving the quality and costs of healthcare with a specific focus on the impact of current state and federal policy efforts.
www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/ashish-jha/
Sunny Ramchandani
Med. Dir. Healthcare Business, Naval Medical Center, San Diego
Lieutenant Commander Ramchandani is an active duty Navy physician who is currently leading efforts on San Diego’s “Integrated Health Community” initiative. Prior to this assignment, Dr. Ramchandani was chosen as one of thirteen White Houe Fellows and served as the Chief Medical Officer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In 2009, Dr Ramchandani deployed to Afghanistan as the Senior Medical Mentor for the Afghan National Security Forces and guided the execution of a new healthcare development strategy for all medical facilities in the country.
www.opm.gov/About_opm/ExecutiveTeam/Ramchandani_Sunny.pdf
Sheel Tyle
Associate, New Enterprise Associates
As the youngest associate at the largest VC firm in the world, Tyle is a member of the technology team, the consumer team, the India team and looks closely at emerging markets. Previously, he was at Bessemer Venture Partners, focusing on technology businesses and emerging markets. Sheel is the co-founder of ReSight, a nonprofit that democratizes the distribution of eye care services by turning unemployed rural women into employed Vision Guardians who screen others for vision impairments.
sheeltyle.com/about/
Sujay Tyle
VP Business Development, Scopely
Tyle is a Peter Thiel 20 under 20 fellow and dropped out of Harvard at age 18, after matriculating to the institution at 15. He has conducted six years of biofuel research and worked at the Blackstone Group in Tokyo. Tyle recently delivered a TEDxTeen talk in NYC.
www.tedxteen.com/speakers-performers/tedxteen-2012/95-sujay-tyle
Inderpreet Wadhwa
CEO, Azure Power
Wadhwa is a renewable energy enthusiast and has over 18 years experience building large scale infrastructure projects, patented application products, extremely profitable operations, and raising venture/project finance for startups and fortune 500 companies in energy, retail, financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, CPG, and service industries. In 2007, Inderpreet incorporated Azure power, which is now a leading solar service provider in India, with a vision for creating energy security in rural India through medium scale Solar PV generation.
www.azurepower.com/main/index.php/about/team/
Raj Chetty
Prof. of Econ. & Dir. Lab for Economic Applications and Policy, Harvard University
Chetty’s research on topics such as taxation, unemployment, and education has been widely cited in media outlets and Congressional testimony, and has had a significant impact on economic policy in the United States. Chetty has been named one of the top economists in the world by The New York Times and the Economist magazine. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 2003 at the age of 23 and is currently one of the youngest tenured professors in the university’s history.
www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/chetty
Kapil Sharma
Senior General Manager - North America, Tata Sons Ltd.
Prior to rejoining the North America office of Tata Sons Ltd., Sharma served as the General Manager for Tata Services, a subsidiary of Tata Sons, based in Mumbai, India. He primarily focused on global branding and communications. He also assisted the Tata group of companies on various issues such as innovation, climate change, and business excellence/quality management. Prior to joining Tata Sons, Sharma was the Vice President for Madison Government Affairs and served as senior counsel and legislative director to U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli (NJ).
www.halleinstitute.emory.edu/india-summit/speakers/sharma.html
Shekar Narasimhan
Mng. Partner, Beekman Advisors; Co-Founder, Indian Inst. for Sust. Enterprise
Narasimhan is also the Chairman of Papillon.vc, focused on sustainable infrastructure investing and CEO of Beekman Helix India Partners, a real estate merchant bank in India. Narasimhan was formerly the Managing Director of Prudential Mortgage Capital Company and Chairman & CEO of the WMF Group, a publicly traded, commercial mortgage financial services company. In his industry roles, he is the Secretary for the Board of Governors of the National Housing Conference and a Fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
http://www.beekmanadvisors.com/partners.html
Dr. Maina Chawla Singh
Associate Professor, University of Delhi
Dr Maina Chawla Singh, Associate Professor, University of Delhi, has lectured widely at international institutions including Cambridge, Oxford, Yale and the Library of Congress. Since 2009, she has been a Schusterman Fellow, Brandeis University and Scholar-in-Residence, American University. Dr Singh has offered courses on the Indian Diaspora at Georgetown and American Universities. Her research projects include “Migration Narratives of Indian Jewish Women” and “Political Activism among Indian Americans”.
indiaspora.org/participants
Jai Singh
Editor-in-Chief Yahoo!
Jai Singh is editor-in-chief of Yahoo! Global Media and VP and GM of Yahoo Home Page, Jai’s responsibilities include helping transform the company as it increases its original content creation, build the unique voice and programming of the Yahoo!”s leading properties, and help drive best-in-class tools and practices-such as publishing platforms, aggressive social and SEO distribution-and programming across all platforms. Prior to joining Yahoo! in 2011, Jai was the managing editor of the Huffington Post Media Group.
indiaspora.org/participants
Neera Tanden
President, Center for American Progress
Tanden has served in both the Obama and Clinton Administrations, as well as presidential campaigns and think tanks. She previously served as senior advisor for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, working on President Obama’s health reform team in the White House to pass the bill. Prior to that, Tanden was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign and policy director for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
www.americanprogress.org/experts/TandenNeera.html/
Maneet Chauhan
Executive Chef, TV Personality, James Beard Award Winner
A James Beard award winning chef, Chauhan catapulted into the culinary spotlight after her appearances on Food Network’s Iron Chef America and The Next Iron Chef. She began her career by opening an upscale contemporary Indian Restaurant in Southern New Jersey, as well as fine dining establishments in Chicago and New York City. Chauhan is actively involved in community activities, including “CRY America” 2012, March of Dimes, Make a Wish Foundation and is a supporter of Common Threads, Meals on Wheels, United Cerebral Palsy and Apna Ghar, just to name a few.
www.maneetchauhan.com/
Parag Saxena
Founding General Partner and CEO, New Silk Route
Saxena’s New Silk Route is a $1.4 billion fund dedicated to India and other emerging economies of Southeast Asia. He is also co-founder of Vedanta Capital. Prior to 2006, Saxena led INVESCO Private Capital as CEO and Chancellor Capital where he led over 90 investments of which a third went public. He has served on committees advising the Prime Minister of India on foreign direct investments and venture capital for the Planning Commission of India. He is also a Director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Heritage Fund as well as a Trustee of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
nsrpartners.com/team_parag_saxena.html
Anouska Cheddie
Chair, SAALT Board of Directors
Anouska Cheddie is the Chair of SAALT's Board of Directors. She currently works with the Environmental Defense Fund as a Senior Major Gift Officer. Previously, she was with Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PFPA). Prior to PPFA, Anouska was the Development Director for the North Star Fund, a non-endowed community foundation that funds community organizing in New York City. She got her start in development as a political fundraiser where she worked for such progressive candidates as New York State Senator Liz Krueger and former New York City Councilmember Stephen DiBrienza. She has also volunteered with the Sithabile Child and Youth Center in Johannesburg, South Africa and the Seagull Arts and Media Center in Calcutta, India. Anouska is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK.
indiaspora.org/participants
Gautam Raghavan
Associate Director, Office of Public Engagement, The White House
Raghavan directs outreach on behalf of The White House to the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) communities. Prior to his current position, he served as Deputy White House Liaison for the Department of Defense, serving as Outreach Lead for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Working Group.
www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/aapi/leadership/working-group/gautam-raghavan
Dr. Amita Gupta
Associate Professor of Medicine & International Health, Johns Hopkins
For the past 10 years Dr. Gupta has been actively conducting clinical research in India focused on the prevention and treatment of HIV, TB and other infectious diseases, particularly among women and children. She now leads a US National Institutes of Health funded clinical trials unit at BJ Medical College, a large public government hospital in Pune, India. She also works as a HIV and infectious diseases physician at Johns Hopkins caring for inner city Baltimore patients.
www.hopkinsglobalhealth.org/researchers/profile/1223/Gupta/Amita
Dhaval Udani
CEO GiveIndia
Dhaval, a graduate of IIM-A, and a computer engineer by qualification was volunteering with GiveIndia for 2 and a half years while he worked as a management consultant with A. T. Kearney. He worked for 4 years prior to his MBA with a software subsidiary of Citigroup. Over the last 4 years with GiveIndia, he has led various teams including Online Giving, Technology and Operations. Since Jan 2011, Dhaval has been leading GiveIndia as its CEO.
indiaspora.org/participants
Rohini Dey
Owner/Founder, Vermilion, Columnist & Philanthropist
As a leading restaurateur in the U.S., proponent of Indian cuisine with a global twist, and an avid supporter of women - former economist and management consultant Rohini Dey comfortably straddles the worlds of business and glamour across the U.S. and India. In 2003, Rohini was inspired to break away from her management consulting career and developed the Vermilion Indian-latin concept and cuisine.
www.thevermilionrestaurant.com/bio.cfm
Tania James
Author
James’ debut novel Atlas of Unknowns was published in 2009, and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her new book is a short story collection, Aerogrammes, and her short stories have appeared in a number of journals. James is the recipient of fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. From 2011-2012, she was a Fulbright fellow to India living in New Delhi.
taniajames.com/bio/
Varun Sivaram
Rhodes Scholar
Sivaram is studying toward a Ph.D in Condensed Matter Physics at Oxford University. His research is on charge transport in hybrid organic solar cells, and he is in the process of publishing journal articles on novel nanostructures and new computation modelling approaches. He is passionate about developing and deploying new sources of renewable energy. Previously, Sivaram worked in Silicon Valley solar start-ups Twin Creeks Technologies and Nanosolar and conducted research at Stanford's Linear Accelerator SLAC and at Munich's Ludwig-Maximiliens University.
news.stanford.edu/news/2010/november/rhodes-mitchell-marshall-112310.html
Rajan R. Navani
Managing Director, Jetline Group of Companies
Navani is the Managing Director of the Indian arm of the Jetline Group of Companies with interests in packaging manufacturing, software development and new ventures in innovative entertainment, and organized consumer retail. Navani is currently the Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) National Committee on India@75, which is looking at effectively channeling the vast youth energy of the country towards building a Dream India by 2022, 75 years since its independence.
youngturks.in.com/article.php?autono=159
Kevin Negandhi
Anchor, ESPN SportsCenter
Negandhi currently hosts the 9am Eastern SportsCenter Monday through Friday. He also has hosted Baseball Tonight, College Football Live, NFL Live, First Take and Outside the Lines on ESPN. He’s the first Anchor of Indian-American descent to be on a national sports network in American Television history. Previously, he was a sports anchor at KTVO-TV in Kirksville, Missouri, and WWSB-TV in Sarasota, Florida.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Negandhi
Vivek Maru
CEO, Namati
Maru leads Namati, an international organization dedicated to legal empowerment for the estimated 4 billion people around the world living without full protection of the law. Prior to launching Namati, Maru served as senior counsel in the Justice Reform Group of the World Bank. His work focused on rule of law reform and governance, primarily in West Africa and South Asia.
www.namati.org/staff/vivek/
Raghava KK
Artist
Raghava KK is a multi-disciplinary artist, working in technology, education, music, and performance. His collaborations with celebrity artists include recent work with musicians Paul Simon and Erykah Badu and with FIFA award winning perfomer Yann Vasnier. He is a three-time TED speaker, TED Mentor, guest faculty/mentor at Singularity University and MIT's NuVu Studio, and is on the board of the INK Conference. In 2011, he launched his children's iPad book, Pop-it, shaking up the concept of an ideal family.
www.raghavakk.com/
Garud Iyengar
Prof. School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University
Garud Iyengar is a Professor at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. After graduating with the President's Gold Medal from IIT Kanpur in 1993, Iyengar went on to earn a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998. He is a core faculty member for the MS program in Financial Engineering and the Executive Education program discretionary portfolio managers run by the School of Engineering. He currently sits on the advisory boards for the Columbia University Systems Science Program in Public Health and the new Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering at Columbia. His research interests and published works have spanned a diverse range of fields, including electrical engineering, applied mathematics, computer science, operations research, economics and financing engineering. His current projects focus on the areas of system risk management, quantitative marketing, smart grids, public health and systems biology.
www.columbia.edu/~gi10
T.V. Somanathan
Director of General Services, World Bank
From 1987-1996 and again from 2001-2011, Somanathan worked in a variety of positions in state and Union Governments in India, including Deputy Secretary (Finance), Executive Director of the Metropolitan Water & Sewerage Board, Joint Commissioner for Vigilance & Anti-Corruption and Secretary for Planning and Development. Between 1996 and 1999 he worked at the World Bank and in 2000, he became one of the bank’s youngest Division Managers. He rejoined the World Bank in 2011.
indiaspora.org/participants
Bharati Mukherjee
Author
Mukherjee is the author of eight novels (most recently, Miss New India, Desirable Daughters and The Tree Bride), two collections of short stories, numerous essays on immigration and American culture, and co-author, with Clark Blaise, of two books of non-fiction. She is the first naturalized U.S. citizen to win the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Best Fiction. She has been a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley since 1989.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharati_Mukherjee
Hari Sreenivasan
Correspondent & Director of Digital Partnerships, PBS NewsHour
Prior to PBS, Sreenivasan reported regularly on the “CBS Evening News,” “The Early Show;” and “CBS Sunday Morning.” Before that, he served as an anchor and correspondent for ABC News, working extensively on the network’s 24-hour digital service “ABC News Now.” Hari also reported for “World News Tonight”, “Nightline.” and anchored the overnight program World News Now.
www.pbs.org/newshour/aboutus/bio_sreenivasan.html
Arun K. Singh
Deputy Chief of Mission Ambassador, Embassy of India
Ambassador Singh has held a variety of diplomatic appointments during his thirty-plus year career with the Indian Foreign Service, including stations in Moscow, Tokyo and Addis Ababa, and terms as Deputy Secretary/Director dealing with East Asia and Pakistan, head of the Offices of the Foreign Secretary and the External Affairs Minister, Counselor to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in New York, Joint Secretary of UN Policy, Joint Secretary of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran Divisions at the Ministry of External Affairs, Counselor/Minister to Moscow and Ambassador to Israel.
www.indianembassy.org/deputy-chief-of-mission.php
Ninan Chacko
CEO, PR Newswire
Prior to taking the helm at PR Newswire in 2009, Chacko served as Chief Commercial Officer of Worldspan, the worldwide travel information, e-commerce and technology service provider to travel agencies, travel service providers and corporations. Prior to Worldspan, Chacko spent more than 13 years with Sabre Holdings, a leading supplier of distribution and technology solutions to the travel industry and Sabre's former owner, AMR Corp.
multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/prnewswire/36921/
Nishant Lalwani
Co-founder, Monitor Inclusive Markets
Lalwani is currently completing his Masters in Business Administration at Harvard Business School, where he is a Fulbright Scholar. He has worked in India, Africa and the UK on scalable social enterprise models and market based solutions for poverty. Most recently, he helped found Monitor Inclusive Markets, a specialist consultancy and think tank that supports social enterprises in emerging markets.
www.fulbright.org.uk/about/british-participants
Emilie R. Ninan
Partner, Ballard Spahr
Ninan is currently serving as the president of the North American South Asian Bar Association (NASABA). At her firm, she is responsible for the public finance practice in Delaware. She represents governmental, quasi-governmental, and private entities, including 501(c)(3) institutions that are eligible for tax-exempt financing.
www.nasaba.com/?page=PresidentsMessage
Navin Thukkaram
COO, Qwiki
Thukkaram is a technology entrepreneur and angel investor, former Director and #2 private equity professional at Vulcan Capital, and foreign policy influencer. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies - the youngest member in its 50-year history.
www.crunchbase.com/person/navin-thukkaram-2
Shoma Chaudhury
Managing Editor, Tehelka
Earlier in her career, Chaudhury worked with The Pioneer, India Today, and Outlook. In 2000, she left Outlook to join Tarun Tejpal, and was among the team that started Tehelka.com. When Tehelka was forced to close down by the government after its seminal story on defense corruption, she was one of four people who stayed on to fight and articulate Tehelka's vision and relaunch it as a national weekly.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoma_Chaudhury
Suresh Bala Iyer
Chief Executive Officer, Asia TV USA
A broadcast executive with international experience encompassing brand development and positioning, video on demand, integrated marketing, advertising and new media, Bala became CEO of New York City-based Asia TV USA in June 2011. From 2006-2010, Bala was CEO of Zoom Entertainment Network, the entertainment and lifestyle channel in Mumbai, where he led its re-launch and repositioning as the “Bollywood Channel.”
www.marketwire.com/press-release/suresh-bala-iyer-named-ceo-of-asia-tv-usa-ltd-1525683.htm
Surya Kant
President, North America, U.K., Europe, Tata Consultancy Services
“Sury” has been with TCS for more than 30 years and has made significant contributions to the growth of the company and the software industry. Prior to 2007, he served as head of customer delivery in New Delhi, and as head of TCS’ operations in Japan and the United Kingdom, respectively.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Kant
Srikumar S. Rao
Author & Educator
Rao’s best selling books include “Are You Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life” and “Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated and Successful – No Matter What”. He leads executive seminars and has taught at leading universities, including Columbia Business School.
www.areyoureadytosucceed.com/bio.asp
James V. Abraham
MD and CEO - SunBorne Energy
After a decade of working in North America, James moved to India in 1998. He joined the early team that was setting up BCG in India and opened the offices in Mumbai and Delhi. He co-led the India practice till 2009, when he left to set up SunBorne. James is a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and the Aspen-India Leadership Initiative.
www.sunborneenergy.com/james.html
Rajesh Shah
Founder, Peer Water Exchange
Shah designed PWX to solve the project selection, funding and monitoring problems for water projects for Blue Planet Run Foundation in order to deliver and verify the impact of thousands of small projects. His prior career experience includes years with Bell Laboratories, CSC Index, TidesNow and other NGOs.
peerwater.org/home_page/team
Geoffrey R. Pyatt
Principal Deputy Secretary, South and Central Asian Affairs Bureau
Prior to his current position, Pyatt was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency and International Organizations in Vienna. Formerly, he served internationally at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, the American Consulate General in Hong Kong, and the American Consulate in Lahore.
www.state.gov/p/sca/rls/144998.htm
Mitul Desai
Senior Advisor for Strategic Partnerships, U.S. Department of State
In this role - the first-ever of its kind - Desai engages private sector, non-profit and diaspora organizations to build public-private partnerships in South Asia on entrepreneurship, philanthropy, trade and technology. Before joining the State Department, he was an entrepreneur in the health care sector, an equity research analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., and an intellectual property attorney
www.bu.edu/phpbin/calendar/event.php?id=121933&cid=17&oid=0
Shveta Raina
Start-up team member, Teach For India
Shveta was on the start-up team of Teach For India, as the Director of the recruitment, selection and marketing teams. Under her leadership, Teach For India launched a nationwide campaign and successfully brought in hundreds of young leaders to teach full-time in low-income schools in India. Shveta is currently a Horace Goldsmith Fellow for Social Enterprise at Harvard Business School, where she is researching entrepreneurial models to tackle India’s most pressing challenges.
indiaspora.org/participants/
Anurima Bhargava
Chief of the Educational Opportunities, Civil Rights Division, U.S. DOJ
Anurima Bhargava is the Chief of the Educational Opportunities Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. She leads the Department’s efforts to provide equal educational opportunities for all students nationwide by enforcing federal statutes that prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, language status, religion and disability. Prior to joining the DOJ in 2010, Ms. Bhargava served as the Director of the Education Practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she was actively engaged in litigation and advocacy to expand educational access and opportunity for students of color.
indiaspora.org/participants/
Sharad Sharma
Co-founder and CEO BrandSigma Inc.
Sharad Sharma is the co-founder and CEO of BrandSigma Inc. He also Chairs the NASSCOM Product Forum and is a board member at Indian Angel Network. Most recently he was a SVP at Yahoo! and CEO of India R&D. He is passionate about cloud computing and its potential to create software product winners out of India.
indiaspora.org/participants/
Vikram Gandhi
Filmmaker
Vikram Gandhi is an award-winning director of non-fiction and fiction films. In 2010, Vikram combined his passion for mythology and documentary to direct and star in Kumaré, a film in which he impersonates a wise guru from the East and starts a following of real people in the West. Vikram is currently a Producer on the HBO’s new series, VICE, as well as a partner at Disposable, a NYC-based commercial production company.
indiaspora.org/participants/