Mentors

Mr Alok Agrawal
Alok works as an Innovation and Business Consultant, enabling companies to unlock untapped value and grow exponentially. He has helped a number of corporations and startups innovate their business and has conducted numerous Innovation challenges and hackathons. He has been a speaker on innovation at various prestigious forums. As a media professional, Alok has earlier worked as Group COO at Network 18 and CEO at Zee Media. He has also been an advertising professional, having worked as COO of Cheil Worldwide (A Samsung Group Company) and agencies of the WPP Network. An IIT Kanpur, IIM Bangalore and Wharton alumnus, Alok has led large corporations, startups, mergers, acquisitions and many successful brand launches.

Mr Pradeep Gupta
Pradeep Gupta is the Chairman of the CyberMedia Group, the specialty media house, with brands like Dataquest, PCQuest, Voice&Data, DARE, CIOL, Global Services, etc. Pradeep was conferred the “National Entrepreneurship Award as the Best Mentor” by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India.Pradeep is the Chief Mentor of Electropreneur Park, Delhi & Bhubaneshwar. Pradeep is an Angel investor and has mentored over 250 start-ups. He is the co-founder of Indian Angel Network, Asia’s largest angel network with more than 500 members that has done over 180 deals. He was on the Board of UTI AMC with $20 Bn of AUM. Pradeep is Chair – Alumni Trust (IvyCap Ventures) that has a corpus of $150 mn for investments in medium scale businesses. Pradeep was a global trustee of TiE, the world’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystem with 12,000 members, including over 2,500 charter members in 60 chapters across 17 countries. Pradeep was the GP of India’s first angel fund Infinity Ventures.He has been the past President of PanIIT India and Association of Indian Magazines. He is/has been on the Boards of IIT Mandi, Indian Newspaper Society, IIT Delhi incubator, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, Lemon Tree Hotels, etc. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award of IIT Delhi and IIM Calcutta and the Helen Keller award for working in the disability sector. Pradeep is an Engineer from IIT Delhi (1975) and an MBA from IIM Calcutta (1977).

Mr Alok Mittal
Alok is Co-founder and CEO of Indifi, India’s leading full-stack platform for enabling debt financing for small businesses. Alok is also an active angel investor, co-founder of Indian Angel Network, and on the board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Delhi. Prior to starting Indifi, Alok setup and ran Canaan Partners’ venture investment business. Earlier, Alok co-founded JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business in India. Alok earned a BE in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and a MS in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Mr Ajay Muttreja
Ajay Muttreja (alumni of IIT Kanpur and IIM Ahmedabad) is a Strategy Advisor & Mentor for MSME’s and Start-ups, since his retirement as CEO & Board Member of Tecnova, where he helped more than 1,000 multi-national and Indian companies achieve transformational growth and long-term success in India. He was a former Industry Advisor to Royal Government of Bhutan (1985-87). Over the past 4 years, he is supporting many Indian Government bodies, Incubators, Accelerators, Innovation Centres, Angel Investors, Venture Capital Funds, Educational Institutions, and start-ups (including social impact enterprises) as their Strategic Advisor, Mentor, Jury, Investment Expert, Think -Tank and hand-holding virtual partner.

Mr Rajat Jain
An IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad Alum, Rajat Jain is a Founder Director of PadUp Ventures, a Knowledge and Mentoring Platform, focusing on providing deep mentoring and incubation services to early stage tech companies as well as other Incubators in India. After a 30 year career in Corporate India in leadership roles, Rajat is now a Non-Executive Director on several Boards and Advisory Boards. Apart from this, his passion and work areas include mentoring enterpreneurs and executives alike as an angel investor & a startup mentor.

Mr Nitin Deshmukh
Mr Deshmukh has 32 years of experience in VC/PE investing. He led investments in over 80 companies a number of which have grown attaining leadership position in Pharma, Biotech, Healthcare, Media & Retailing sectors. Served as the founding Director General, Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE). Member of the Board of Governors of Institute of Chemical Technology, ICT (formerly UDCT), Mumbai. Member of the CII National Committee on Biotechnology.

Mr Sushanto Mitra
Sushanto Mitra is an entrepreneur who has been associated with the early stage ecosystem in India for more than 15 years. with a prior experience in consulting and financial services. As the Founder & CEO of Lead Angels – started initially by a team of three originally from IIT Bombay to assist early stage investments in start-ups. Sushanto has taken the network to over 130+ members/investors across the globe. Lead Angels, today has gone beyond Angel Investing. The network has a process driven investment approach and provides 360° support across all stages to investee companies. Lead Angels, today, is a full stack financial services company for startups. Apart from investments, Lead Advisory assists startups in follow-on fund raising while LA Management & Professional Services supports compliance and governance requirements of these companies. Specifically they also provide assistance to academic institutions & organizations for capacity building and value creation through startups. With 30+ investments over the past 5 years, Lead Angels’ portfolio and clients boasts of marquee names viz. SuprDaily, Planet Superheroes, AHA Taxi and Shopkirana to name a few. His prior assignments include founding CEO, Society for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, (SINE) IIT Bombay and Director Hyderabad Angels. A TIE Chartered member, he is also a part of the advisory committee at premier incubators in India as well undertaken multiple training programs for Government & Private organizations such as IIT Bombay, DST, ISRO, CSIR. Carleton University, Tata Communications and UNAPCTT on startups and startup management.

Dr Pinak Ashok Shrikhande
Over 20 years of clinical experience in Critical Care Medicine and healthcare operations. He leads the Investment Team at HealthQuad, a leading Indian healthcare focused fund, in deal sourcing, clinical evaluation, market understanding, due diligence, investor relations. Work closely with the portfolio company managements to add tangible operational and strategic value. He is Ex- Director of Critical Care Medicine, Fortis Hospitals, New Delhi and member of committees including, Pharma and Therapeutics, Quality Council, Infection Control for the Fortis Group enabling experience across entire value chain of healthcare delivery. Dr Ashok is also teacher for the ISCCM Fellowship program for over 9 years.

Mr Aishwarya Kachhal
Track record of building large business in Technology, Clean Energy, shared infrastructure & financial services. Expertise in scaling business’s, building entrepreneurial team and disruptive business models. HBS Alumni. Co – Chair, HBS Alumni Angels of India.