Where AI engineering meets industry expertise

Akhil is the former Vice Chairman of Bharti Enterprises. He has played a pivotal role in Bharti’s phenomenal growth right since inception - both organically and by way of various acquisitions

 

He has led the formation of various partnerships for Bharti with leading international operators like British Telecom, Telecom Italia, Singapore Telecom and Vodafone in addition to induction of leading financial investors like Warburg Pincus, Temasek, KKR, Qatar Foundation Endowment, AIF and Sequoia among many other Private Equity funds. He has also been instrumental in raising several billion dollars by way of project finance for the Group over the years from global banks, bond markets and Export Credit Agencies (ECAs).

 

He has led the formation of various partnerships for Bharti with leading international operators like British Telecom, Telecom Italia, Singapore Telecom and Vodafone in addition to induction of leading financial investors like Warburg Pincus, Temasek, KKR, Qatar Foundation Endowment, AIF and Sequoia among many other Private Equity funds. He has also been instrumental in raising several billion dollars by way of project finance for the Group over the years from global banks, bond markets and Export Credit Agencies (ECAs).

 

In 2010, he was instrumental in the acquisition of Zain Group’s mobile operations in 15 countries across Africa.

 

He has also spearheaded the successful public listings of Bharti Airtel (2002), Bharti Infratel (2012) and Airtel Africa (2019) and has been instrumental in introducing Global benchmarks like full Quarterly audits and transparent Quarterly reports to provide all relevant information to investors & stakeholders. Consequently, Bharti Airtel and Bharti Infratel have been constantly awarded highest ratings for Corporate Governance and are acknowledged globally for highest standards of ethics.

 

He is President of TSSC (Telecom Sector Skill Council), Ex-Chairman of DIPA (Digital Infrastructure Providers Association), member of CII National Committee on Telecom & Broadband, member of CII Task Force on Insolvency and Bankruptcy and has been a member of the Advisory Committee on Service Providers of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India and Sub Committee of Insolvency Law Committee, Government of India.

 

He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bharti Life Insurance Ltd., a Board member of Eutelsat Communications, a company listed in France offering LEO and GEO satellite services globally; Chairman of the Board of Directors of 360 ONE WAM Ltd., a leading Indian listed Wealth and Asset management company; Chairman of the Board of Directors of Valuedrive Technologies Limited (Spinny), a member on the Board of Zepto, a leading Indian Quick Commerce company, a member on the board of Snapdeal, a prominent Indian E-Commerce company and a member on the Board of Lodha Developers – a prominent Indian Real Estate company.

In his current role as Chairman of Inversion Advisory Services, he also advises a number of prominent companies in diverse sectors like Infrastructure, Renewal Energy, Automobiles, Tourism, Consulate services and Footwear.

 

He is a Chartered Accountant with over 40 years of professional experience. He has also done an “Advanced Management Program” at the Harvard Business School in the year 2002.

 

He is the recipient of numerous awards which include Tele.Net Outstanding Contribution to Infrastructure and Telecom Development Award, ET Telecom Lifetime Achievement Award, Voice&Data Lifetime Contribution Award, EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award as an Entrepreneur CEO, CA Lifetime Achievement Award by ICAI, CA Global Achiever Award by ICAI, Lifetime Achievement Award by Amity University, CEO of the Year award at National Telecom Awards, CA Business Achiever award by ICAI, Asia Corporate Dealmaker award at the Asia Pacific M&A Atlas Awards, Best CFO awards in multiple categories by CNBC–TV18 and induction to Hall of Fame by CFO India.

 

His book ‘Some Sizes Fit All’ on management has been published by Penguin Random House.

Sudhir is the Chief Executive Officer of Coforge and serves on the company’s Board of Directors.

Sudhir is a graduate of IIM Calcutta and IIT (BHU). He is a recipient of the prestigious Distinguished IIT Alumnus Award.

Sudhir joined Coforge in May 2017. Under his watch, the firm has emerged as the seventh largest Indian IT services company, grown revenues by almost four times (reference: FY25 results) and the market capitalization has grown 30 times. Over the last nine years, there have been two very successful promoter exits.

Sudhir started his career at Hindustan Lever Limited (HUL). During his six-year Sales and Brand Management stint with HUL in India, Sudhir won the prestigious Hindustan Unilever Chairman’s Award “for exceptional performance.”

Subsequently, he spent close to a decade with Infosys in the US. He was an invitee to the Infosys Management Committee, the Head of the Infosys South-West Geo, and also founded and ran the Infosys Global BFS Payments and Cards business.

At Genpact, Sudhir was the Chief Operating Officer of the Capital Markets and IT Services business.

Sudhir is passionate about enabling access to learning for all. He visualized and has spearheaded The Coforge Public Library initiative under which four world-class public libraries are operating across Noida, Gurugram, Hyderabad and New Delhi. These libraries are open every calendar day of the year between 9 am to 8 pm. The firm has committed to opening 30 libraries across Delhi NCR over the next four years under this mission.

Sudhir is based in Princeton, NJ, USA.

Beth is an internationally Certified Board Director, Global CIO and Transformation Officer Partner in Fortium Partners’ East Region, where she leverages her broad industry experience including pharmaceutical, life sciences, insurance as well as Government and Utilities. Beth has more than 25 years of experience leading strategic initiatives such as Global M&A, Cybersecurity, ITO/BPO transformation, Process Automation to solve the information technology challenges of complex global enterprises. She has a strong track record of driving business and digital transformation to free up capital for investment and growth. Beth is a member of the World Affairs Forum, NY Society for Information Management, Evanta NYC leadership Council, and the Red Zone MasterMind Leadership team. Beth is an active contributor to causes supporting community business development, animal welfare and mentoring with NPower. Beth holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Anil has 40 years of experience covering global IT and analytics. He has previously served as the Chief Financial Officer of HCL Technologies Limited and worked closely with the Board and its committees in formulating and executing strategic priorities. He played leadership roles in areas like Finance, M&A, Procurement, Risk Management and Corporate Restructuring.

Anil is acting as business consultant in strategy and finance. He is serving on the boards of listed and unlisted entities having private equity sponsors and in diverse sectors such as CDMO, API, intermediates and formulations, sports and athleisure footwear, Nex-gen customer experience, and health benefits administration.

Anil is a chartered accountant by profession, did B.Com (Honours) from the University of Delhi and completed the financial management program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mr. John Robert Speight is the Business Head for UK and Europe Geo leading all of our business operations in the region. In this role, John is responsible for driving strategic growth across diverse sectors with the region. John is based in London, having joined Coforge in July, 2018. With over 40 years of experience in the IT industry, working for both client and services firms; this enables John to have a view from both perspectives, what challenges, opportunities are faced and how to address. He is detailed and business orientated with a strong affinity for the needs of customers and what needs to be delivered to create real value. He is known for his strong execution orientated approach to driving front-end sales excellence, and commitment to delivering results. During his 7 year tenure at Coforge John has played many strategic transformational roles such as Customer Success Officer and Chief Delivery Officer. Prior to Coforge, John worked for 6 years in the Banking and Financial Services sector at Genpact, he has also worked for 13 plus years for leading brokerages in the city of London, where he led major global transformation programs. Mr. John Robert Speight is a graduate from Haywards Heath 6th Form College, West Sussex with “A” Levels in Maths along with Statistics, History & Economics.

Vivek Sharma builds and grows businesses with AI and quantum technologies, as a Founder-CEO, Fortune 500 operator, and public-company director.

Vivek is the CEO and co-founder of Quantelix, which is commercializing Caltech-patented, quantum-enabled biosensing in a handheld device with laboratory-grade accuracy. Previously, he was CEO and co-founder of InStride, an education-technology company he scaled to more than $100M in profitable annual revenue in four years, earning a place on Fortune's inaugural "Impact 20."

Vivek serves on the boards of Kaiser Permanente, JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU), Pearson (LSE: PSON), and Coforge (NSE: COFORGE) – with public-company governance experience across the US, UK, and India. He is a member of Caltech's Information Science and Technology (IST) Advisory Council, an adjunct professor of data science at the University of Southern California, and a senior advisor for AI and quantum to private equity firms and AI-startup founders. He is the author of two books, C-SPARK and WIREFRAMED, and has written for HBR and NACD on how boards and executives should navigate AI.

In his Fortune 500 operating roles, Vivek spent six years at The Walt Disney Company as Senior Vice President of Digital Guest Experience and E-commerce, overseeing a $10B online business serving 150 million guests a year across Disney's global parks, resorts, cruises, restaurants, and retail. Before that, he held leadership roles at Yahoo for four years – serving as General Manager of Yahoo Mail and Messenger and Vice President of Yahoo Search – and spent eight years at McKinsey as an Associate Partner.

Vivek graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and holds an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Shweta Jalan is Managing Partner at Advent, bringing over 25 years of private equity experience. She joined Advent in 2009 and has since helped to build the firm’s India and broader Asia Pacific business, having advised on 20 investments during her career, 14 while at Advent, across sectors including in business & financial services, healthcare, consumer, and technology. Prior to joining Advent, Shweta spent nine years at ICICI Venture - then India’s largest private equity firm - and began her career in the corporate finance division of Ernst & Young. Her notable investments include Apollo 24/7, Bharat Serums and Vaccines (BSV), Cohance (formerly Suven), Manjushree Technopack Limited, Crompton Greaves, Yes Bank, Svatantra and Tredence, among others. Shweta is a member of FICCI Private Equity Committee and CII Private equity Committee, and has been widely recognised for her leadership, including being named one of the ‘50 Most Powerful Women in Business’ by Fortune India, ‘Investment Professional of the Year’ by VC Circle, and featuring in Business Today’s ‘Most Powerful Women in Indian Business’ list.

Atin is a Director at Advent Private Equity with over 15 years of experience. He has been part of the Advent team since 2019. He covers Technology investments across US and India, and Healthcare investments in India; driving 20+ investments and M&As in his career.

He joined Advent in 2019 from Bain Capital, where he spent over three years working in Technology and Healthcare investments. Before that, he worked at Bain & Company (Consulting) and Accenture (Technology). Atin holds MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, M.Sc. from University of Bocconi, Italy and Engineering in Electronics and Telecom

An industry veteran with over 30 years of experience, Sunil Fernandes serves as Coforge’s Chief Operating Officer (COO). He oversees global delivery along with key operations including administration, facilities, and internal IT services.

Fernandes has driven significant transformation across Coforge’s delivery organization, enhancing execution excellence, domain depth, and client impact. Prior to Coforge, Fernandes held leadership roles at Accenture, Infosys, and Cognizant, with a strong track record in scaling global delivery and leading strategic transformation initiatives.

Saurabh Goel serves as the Chief Financial Officer of Coforge Ltd. In his current role, he oversees crucial functions such as Investor Relations, Pricing, Business Finance, Controllership, Procurement, Legal, Secretarial and Corporate Treasury. He joined Coforge in 2011 and has a total of nineteen years of experience in the finance domain. He has played a pivotal role in shaping the company's inorganic strategy over the last decade and has successfully led the post-merger integration of all acquired businesses during this period.

Recognizing his outstanding contributions, Saurabh is one of only two recipients of the prestigious Coforge Corporate Award—the Global Leadership Award—over the past ten years. Prior to joining Coforge, he held a position at Barclays.