Our Mentors

Shalu Mitruka

Shalu is the co-founder of ‘GrowthPal’. GrowthPal is streamlining engagement between startups and corporates through the use of technology stack. Previously she worked with Monitor Deloitte as a Healthcare and Life Sciences Strategy & Operations Consultant followed by her stint with MindTickle as a Business Strategy and Sales Operations manager. She pursued her MBA from IIM Lucknow and bachelors from IIT Kharagpur. She enjoys working as an independent consultant for innovative life sciences and medical devices start-ups in India. Her skills include GTM design, pricing strategy, market research, competitive landscape assessment, primary and secondary research, pricing guidelines, story-telling, financial model assessment, benchmarking, ‘market sizing’ & segmentation, stakeholder mapping and customer buying journey assessments.

Dharm Chaturvedi

Dharm is an agribusiness professional (core area, fish, meat & frozen foods) with about two decades of professional experience in setting up & scaling businesses. He is a Fisheries Graduate from GB Pant University of Agri & Tech, Pantnagar and PGDM from IMT, Ghaziabad. He has been associated with Spencer’s, Walmart, Carrefour, Reliance, etc and helped KPMG, BCG, Bain and a few state governments along with many startups.

Rajnish R

Rajnish has more than 20 years of experience building global brands & companies in digital media, entertainment, pay TV and retail. Before turning an entrepreneur, he was the Team Lead and an individual contributor in various sales and marketing roles with Microsoft, ESPN, Star Sports, Times of India, and Amul. In 2015, with support from leading Indian philanthropists, he launched Independent and Public-Spirited Media Foundation and in 2009, he co-founded Shufflr.tv, an Intel Capital funded video discovery service to leverage the increasing consumption of online videos on smart devices.

Mukul Bagga

Mukul is the Managing Director of Quest Diagnostics, India. He has over two decades of experience in the healthcare industry, with special expertise in launching new super specialty divisions like Oncology, Neurology, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology and Respiratory Medicine which serve as launch platforms for first in class or Biotechnology products. He has successfully created innovative business models to establish high value patented molecules & biotechnology products in the market, by partnering with healthcare stakeholders such as hospitals and insurance companies. He is passionate about sharing his experiences with young professionals, and since 2004, has been a visiting faculty at several institutions in Mumbai and Pune for their Pharmaceutical Management and Biotechnology Management programs.

C V Murali

CV Murali is the Executive Director at Potential Genesis HR Services LLP. He is a post-graduate in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT-Bombay. He possesses three decades of experience in diverse industries, including automobiles, oil & gas, power, and EPC across various functions in leadership roles. His key skill areas are leadership & team building, coaching & mentoring, business excellence, business risk management, supply chain management, manufacturing, audits, statistical process control, quality assurance, and safety management.

Aditya Ajmera

Aditya is the CEO of Chimco Bio Medical Engineering Co. He has over 35 years of experience in distribution and marketing of medical equipment and devices. He has worked with several global companies in India and overseas. Aditya enjoys exploring new business ideas, he is deeply passionate about motivating & guiding entrepreneurs. In his free time he enjoys practicing Zen meditation and traveling.

Chand Das

Chand Das is an executive coach and an angel investor. He previously served as the CEO of Education & Stationery Products at ITC. With over 35 years of professional experience in building and running scaled B2B and B2C businesses in India, he continues to be passionate about angel investing & mentoring executives, business professionals and entrepreneurs with the aim of helping them succeed.

Dr. Gita Arjun

Dr. Gita Arjun is the Director of Chennai’s EV Kalyani Medical Foundation and a trustee at the Jeevan Public Stem Cell Bank. She retired in 2013 after 32 years as the Director and Obstetrician & Gynaecologist at the EV Kalyani Medical Centre a 67-year-old institution dedicated to women’s health. She is the author of the best-selling Passport to a Healthy Pregnancy, first published in 2009.

Dr. Taslimarif Sayed

Taslimarif is the Director and COO at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), Dept. of Biotechnology, Govt. of India initiative, in Bangalore, India. He received his PhD from Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research, Germany, followed by postdoctoral training at University of California San Francisco (UCSF). He is actively involved in promoting innovation in life sciences.

Dr Alka Dangash

Dr Alka works as an Advisor and a Consultant in the field of Medicinal and aromatic plants. She has 8 years of experience in planning, co-ordinating, conducting environmental surveys, ecological assessment and impact evaluation on flora and fauna, environmental audits, socio-economic health management studies. She has over 20 years of experience in maintaining data at commercial-scale to analyze its commercial feasibility.

Anujay Rao

Anujay has 9 years of multi-sectoral experience across India and Japan. As a design engineer in Toyota, he worked on developing innovative sustainable energy products. With a strong family background in in agriculture, Anujay set up a business of Agri equipment rental in rural Karnataka which led to him designing solutions for farm mechanisation.

He is currently the Founder/ Director of Plough to Grain Agri-design Solutions and is in the process of innovating a product for better crop sowing. With a passion to see products come to life from ideas on paper he mentors young entrepreneurs to think through and strengthen their product development process.

Sanjiv Verma

Sanjiv Verma is an independent consultant and advisor, helping organisations make strategic choices, improve effectiveness and focus on talent retention and growth. He has been an independent director on the boards of a number of Multinationals including Whirlpool of India and Zoetis India Pvt. Ltd.

During 1993-2014 he held various India and Asia leadership positions in pharmaceuticals and medical devices associated with chronic disease and life threatening conditions. Over a 40+ years career spanning manufacturing, sales, marketing and general management, he has worked with leading UK and US multinationals in India as well as abroad.

Divyaroop Bhatnagar

Divyaroop has 30 years of experience in Management, Sales and Marketing in the FMCG, Telecom and Entertainment sector in India, Sri Lanka and the UK. As an entrepreneur himself he runs his own consulting business.

Dr. Karthikeyan Sivashanmugam

He is the Deputy Director at Vellore Institute of Technology. He established the Kairos Society & Gandhi fellowship programs and the Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Development at VIT, Vellore. He mentored students at VIT for developing an IOT based farm irrigation system and application for reducing the carbon offset in villages at free of cost for farmers.

He is currently developing an online course on Social Entrepreneurship. He is the technical advisor and mentor for various startups in sectors such as food, biopolymers, biofertilizers, nutraceuticals, 3D BioPrinting.

YS Prabhakara

Prabhakara was the General Manager/CEO in diverse Industries such as Healthcare, Life sciences and B2B. He has mentored high-performing teams, businesses, entities and scaled them up rapidly. He has worked across India, Asia, Africa and other Continents.

Kannan Neelakanta

Kannan has experience servicing Medical products such as Critical Care, Electro-surgical, Diagnostic Imaging and ophthalmology devices. His expertise in identifying market developments and opportunities is one of his many strong suits.

Dr. Malathi Lakshmikumaran

Dr. Malathi Lakshmikumaran has more than 30 years of experience in the field of biochemistry and Molecular Biology with expertise in plant genomics, DNA fingerprinting, and genetic transformation. Dr. Malathi serves as an Executive Director and heads the life science group at the IP division of the firm. She is a registered patent agent and has been actively engaged in preparing, filing, and prosecuting patent applications, both in India and abroad. She mainly works on pharmaceutical, chemical, and biotechnological patent applications. She advises clients on plant variety protection and registration. She is actively involved in the area of Biodiversity and Traditional knowledge. Dr. Malathi has successfully supervised several Ph.D. students in the area of Plant Molecular Biology. She has more than 100 publications to her credit in various International and Indian journals.