India Venture 2000 has a high-powered Advisory Board to provide direction to the programme and monitor its progress. The Advisory Board will play a critical role in ensuring wider participation and helping build a network of coaches. The board includes select CEOs and entrepreneurs from India and the Silicon Valley, world-renowned academics, financiers including venture capitalists and partners from McKinsey & Company. Among those who have already joined the Advisory Board are: Mr N R Narayana Murthy (CEO, Infosys) Mr Dalip Pathak (Managing Director, E. M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.) Mr Lakshmi N Mittal (Chairman & CEO, Ispat International) Mr K V Kamath (Managing Director, ICICI) Professor C K Prahalad (University of Michigan) Dr Govardhan Mehta (Director, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) Mr Dewang Mehta (President, NASSCOM) Mr Arjun Malhotra (CEO, Techspan, USA) Mr Rajat Gupta (Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.) Mr Kanwal Rekhi (President, The IndUS Entrepreneurs) Mr Rajesh Jain (CEO, IndiaWorld Communications) Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal (Chairman, Bharti Enterprises) Mr Ranjit Pandit (Managing Director, McKinsey & Company, India) Mr Manoj Murjani (CEO, Mazaa Media Inc.) Mr Ajit Balakrishnan (CEO, Rediff.com) Mr Anil Ambani N R Narayana Murthy N R Narayana Murthy is the Chairman and CEO of Infosys, which he started 20 years ago with some friends and an investment of Rs. 10,000. Since then, Infosys has grown into one of India’s best known companies with amongst the highest market capitalisation. Mr Murthy has an MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, having graduated in Electrical Engineering (BE) from the University of Mysore. Mr Murthy has worked at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; SESA, Paris; and System Research Institute, Pune. He is credited with designing and implementing the first BASIC interpreter and time-sharing operating system in India. He was also a member of the operating system team that designed a 400-terminal, real-time operating system for handling air cargo for the Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris. Mr Murthy was the President of NASSCOM between 1992 and 1994 and is on the Governing Council of the National Information Technology Task Force. In 1996, he was voted "IT Man of the Year" by Dataquest India and has been recognised as one of "The Stars of Asia" by Business Week. He is a Fellow of the All India Management Association and the Computer Society of India. In 1998, Mr Murthy was granted the prestigious JRDTata Corporate Leadership award. Dalip Pathak Dalip has been with Warburg Pincus since 1994. He received a BA and MA degree from Delhi University. Prior to joining Warburg Pincus, he was Chief of Mission of the International Finance Corporation for Thailand and Vietnam. Mr Pathak is a Director of United Software Communications Ltd. and Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. Lakshmi N Mittal Lakshmi N Mittal is the Chairman and CEO of Ispat International N V, a member of the LNM Group. Mr Mittal began his career working in his family's steel business in India before founding Ispat International. His entrepreneurial skills in identifying, acquiring and turning around steel assets across the globe have made his company one of the largest and most successful steel producers in the world. Mr Mittal was named "Steelmaker of the Year" in 1996 by New Steel, a leading industry publication. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Iron and Steel Institute. K V Kamath K V Kamath, Managing Director of ICICI, is a strong believer in technology. He has rich international experience, having worked with the Asian Development Bank, as well as on financial projects in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Vietnam. He has a post-graduate degree in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a degree in Engineering. Mr Kamath set up ICICI’s leasing operations and was instrumental in promoting its new lines of business including the venture capital arm (TDICI), the credit rating business (CRISIL) and the investment bank. He is credited with giving it a "cutting-edge dynamism" and a strong growth focus. C K Prahalad C K Prahalad is the Harvey C Fruehauf Professor of Business Administration, University of Michigan. He completed his PhD at the Harvard Business School. His much-lauded doctoral thesis, Resource Allocation in a Global Economy, provided the twin pillars on which the next 20 years of his work were based: Globalisation and Competitiveness. In addition, he received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, having graduated with honours in Physics from Loyola College, Madras. Professor Prahalad was voted one of America’s top ten management teachers in 1994 by Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. He has been a visiting research fellow at Harvard University and a visiting professor at the European Institute of Business Administration. He is an advisor to several multinationals including Eastman Kodak, AT&T, Motorola, Honeywell and Marriott. Professor Prahalad has also made significant contributions to Indian industry by counselling and giving direction to CEOs in India. Govardhan Mehta Govardhan Mehta is Director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Earlier, he was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad. He has a PhD from the University of Pune. Dr Mehta is a Fellow of the Royal College of Chemistry, UK and of the Third World Academy of Sciences, Italy. He has several awards to his credit including the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in Science; the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in Chemical Sciences; and the INSA S Ramanujan Research Professorship. His research interests lie in total synthesis of complex natural and non-natural products, chemistry and reactivity of strained carbocyclic systems, design of new reactions and reagents, molecular recognition, supermolecular chemistry and photodynamic therapy of cancer. Dewang Mehta Dewang Mehta is currently the President of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), the apex body of the computer software industry in India. As President of NASSCOM, Mr Mehta plays a critical role in the growth of the Indian software industry. In addition to ensuring a cohesive vision for the future and helping create the right regulatory environment, NASSCOM organises several national and international seminars, roadshows and exhibitions. In the past, these have included the Cybercity events, NASSCOM's international annual software conferences and roadshows in the US and Europe. He is also an aggressive campaigner against software piracy. Mr Mehta is on the Board of several institutions like NIFT and IIT, Hyderabad, as well as on the Governing Council of the Software Technology Parks of India. Arjun Malhotra Arjun Malhotra is a founder member of the HCL Group. In 1975, he and five other engineers set up Hindustan Computers Limited in the attic of his grandmother’s house in New Delhi. Mr Malhotra has a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Having headed HCL’s operations in the US, Mr Malhotra left to start Techspan Inc. This "results and values" company, is US-based and has set up a centre of excellence in India specialising in technology frameworks tools and development methodologies specific to web-enabled enterprise applications and telecom network management systems. Rajat Gupta Rajat Gupta is the Managing Director of McKinsey & Company. He was elected Managing Director in 1994 and re-elected in 1997. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School, with a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Mr Gupta joined the Firm's New York office in 1973 and assumed the role of Chicago Office Manager in 1989. He has a broad range of consulting experience with a variety of industries, including telecommunications, energy and consumer goods. He is the Chairman of the Indian School of Business, and an Advisory Board member of the Kellogg School of Management and of the Harvard Business School. Kanwal Rekhi Kanwal Rekhi is a large angel investor in Silicon Valley. In the past 3 years, he has funded 12 small companies, 11 of which were started by Indians. He is an alumnus of Michigan Technological University. Mr Rekhi is one of the founder members of TIE, The IndUS Entrepreneur group that aims to foster and mentor entrepreneurs. To date, he remains a guiding force as the president of this non-profit organisation. He worked as a hardware designer till he founded his own start-up, Excelan, that was subsequently sold to Novell in 1989. Since retiring from Novell’s board in 1995, he has focused mostly on running TIE and nurturing entrepreneurs. Rajesh Jain Rajesh Jain is the CEO of IndiaWorld Communications, India's premier Internet services company. He has a BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Mumbai and an MS from Columbia University, New York. Mr Jain worked at NYNEX Science and Technology for two years before returning to India in 1992. He launched IndiaWorld.com, India's first commercial web site, on March 13, 1995. Since then IndiaWorld has grown to include sites on personal finance, cricket, food, history, customised news, the Internet and an India-centred search engine. It also provides web site creation, hosting and management services for more than 125 Indian organisations. In November 2009, Satyam Infoway acquired IndiaWorld for Rs 499 crores (US$ 115 million). Sunil Bharti Mittal Sunil Bharti Mittal is the Founder, Chairman and Group Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises. He started his career at the young age of 18 after graduating from Punjab University in India. He is also an alumnus of the Harvard Business School. He founded Bharti Enterprises in 1976. Today, Mr Mittal heads this successful company with consolidated assets worth US$ 800 million and over 3,000 employees. He has chaired and spoken at several telecom conferences both in India and abroad. Mr Mittal is the honorary consul for the Republic of Seychelles in New Delhi. Ranjit Pandit Ranjit Pandit is Managing Director of McKinsey & Company, India. He has an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a BE (EE) from the University of Mumbai. Mr Pandit joined the Firm in August 1980, and transferred from New York to Mumbai in January 1993. He has a wide range of consulting experience in corporate governance/leadership, change management, corporate finance, alliances, technology management, manufacturing, etc. Many of these projects have involved turning businesses around and building institutional skills. Mr Pandit specialises in the industrial sector and on issues relating to public policy. In India, he has worked with a large number of industrial and consumer companies to help defend domestic positions as liberalisation proceeds and to help penetrate international markets. On issues of public policy and economic development, he has assisted the local government of a major U.S. city and the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. He has also assisted the Government of India on issues related to taxes and industry restructuring. Manoj Murjani Manoj Murjani is CEO and founder of Mazaa Media Inc. He has a BSc in Marketing from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and was educated at the Harrow School in England. In 2009, Mr Murjani co-founded hipO.comTM, the first empowering Web-based destination for the youth market. That very year he also founded Digital Angels Investment Group, an incubator focused exclusively on funding technology ventures in Asia. From 1988 to 1998, as a member of the Murjani Group of Companies, he was instrumental in the Group’s launches of the brand names Gloria Vanderbilt, Coca-Cola Clothes and Tommy Hilfiger, and establishing the Group’s businesses in India and South America. In India, business revenue grew in the first year of operations from $0.5 to $9 million. In South America, the business was turned around and sales grew from $2.5 million to $4.5 million within 2 years. Mr Murjani also spent two years as a private banker at Bankers Trust, where he found an opportunity to leverage the strength of regional offices to develop a new channel of business amongst Asian clientele in Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Zurich, London, and the United States. Ajit Balakrishnan Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO of Rediff.com, a portal that he founded in 1995, is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Mr Balakrishnan co-founded Rediffusion-Dentsu, Young & Rubicam Limited, a company which presently has minority shareholding by Young & Rubicam, NewYork and Dentsu, Japan. It is rated among the top three advertising agencies in India and operates in all fields of advertising including mass media, direct marketing, and public relations. Mr Balakrishnan is a principal investor and once headed PSI Data Systems Limited, a computer business in Bangalore, which operates in the software development arena and is now a publicly listed company in the Bombay Stock Exchange. He is also a member of the Indian Banks' Association Panel of Advisors and of the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) IT Committee and Media Committee.