Dr. Mohan Kaul

Dr. Kaul is the president of Indian Professionals Forum, a leading think tank related to the UK–India partnership and BREXIT. He is a member of the Advisory Council of British Expertise and the Board of Crown Agents Foundation. He is also the Vice Chair and Director of Indo-UK Institute of Health and the Chairman of Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services, an India-based social venture.

Dr. Kaul is a Liveryman of the City of London, a Member of the Board of Directors of Europe India Chamber of Commerce (EICC) at Brussels and an Emeritus Director of the Commonwealth Association of Public Administration in Canada. 

He has served as a Senior Commonwealth Diplomat and to the United Nations as a Public-Sector Advisor. In his earlier days, he was the professor and later dean of IIM Ahmedabad. ​

Dr. Kaul has led over 50 high-level initiatives and Forums, involving Heads of Government, Senior Ministers and top Business Leaders, in a number of countries primarily in South Asia and Africa including countries that had never received FDI before. 

He also advised the South African Government of President Nelson Mandela and the Malaysian government of Prime Minister Mahathir on areas such as public service reforms and economic policies.

Mahesh Ramachandran

Mahesh Ramachandran is a Serial Entrepreneur and Investor, who has successfully founded and exited multiple multi-million-dollar entrepreneurial ventures. 

Mahesh is the founder of Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services Limited, which is a Fintech company that operates in more than 30,000 locations across 20+ states in India. It handles over $1.7B worth of transactions annually, servicing over 5M rural customers with a network of about 4500 agents.

Mahesh is a distinguished Sloan Fellow of London Business School and chairs the TiE Chennai FinTech Special Interest Group.

He is also a General Partner of SEBI registered AIF (Alternative Investment Fund) and is a Leadership Council member of FinBlue, a FinTech Centre of Excellence set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at STPI, Chennai.

Mahesh is also a visiting faculty of Indian School of Business, National Police Academy, and Bennett University, where he teaches digital transformation and digital marketing.

He brings with him several decades of rich & varied experience in the field of Entrepreneurship, Investing, FinTech, Rural Marketing, Digital Transformation, Leadership, Mentoring & Governance.

Mahesh Ramachandran has formerly held leadership roles in Cognizant Technology Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services and Ford Motor Company in the UK.

He holds an MBA from University of Westminster, Sloan Masters in Leadership & Strategy (Distinguished Sloan Fellow of London Business School) from University of London.

Prof. Trichy Krishnan

Dr. Trichy Krishnan is a PhD-Marketing from The University of Texas at Dallas, USA (1994), M.A. International Management Studies (1992) from The University of Texas at Dallas, USA and B.E. Honours – Mechanical Engineering (1982) from The Madras University, India.

His teaching interests include Marketing Channel Strategies, Retailing Strategies, Healthcare Marketing, Pricing, Marketing Strategies, Marketing Decision Models and Analytics (including Applied Multivariate Models such as Factor Analysis, MDS, MANOVA, CONJOINT and MDA).

Dr. Krishnan’s current roles include – Professor at Great Lakes Institute of Management and Member of Editorial Review Board for ROMS (Review of Marketing Science).

He is a  constant reviewer for the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, Management Science, Marketing Science, Journal of Business, International Journal of Research in Marketing, IEEE and International Journal of Forecasting. 

He was also engaged in consultation assignments in the oil & gas drilling rig industry from 1998 to 2006.

Chief Executive Officer

Mahesh Ramachandran

Mahesh Ramachandran is a Serial Entrepreneur and Investor, who has successfully founded and exited multiple multi-million-dollar entrepreneurial ventures. 

Mahesh is the founder of Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services Limited, which is a Fintech company that operates in more than 30,000 locations across 20+ states in India. It handles over $1.7B worth of transactions annually, servicing over 5M rural customers with a network of about 4500 agents.

Mahesh is a distinguished Sloan Fellow of London Business School and chairs the TiE Chennai FinTech Special Interest Group.

He is also a General Partner of SEBI registered AIF (Alternative Investment Fund) and is a Leadership Council member of FinBlue, a FinTech Centre of Excellence set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India at STPI, Chennai.

Mahesh is also a visiting faculty of Indian School of Business, National Police Academy, and Bennett University, where he teaches digital transformation and digital marketing.

He brings with him several decades of rich & varied experience in the field of Entrepreneurship, Investing, FinTech, Rural Marketing, Digital Transformation, Leadership, Mentoring & Governance.

Mahesh Ramachandran has formerly held leadership roles in Cognizant Technology Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services and Ford Motor Company in the UK.

He holds an MBA from University of Westminster, Sloan Masters in Leadership & Strategy (Distinguished Sloan Fellow of London Business School) from University of London.

Manager – Investments and Investor Relations

HITIK P JAIN

Hitik manages the investments arm of Tech Innovations. He has worked with multiple startups that have brought about some of the most inspiring and disruptive emerging technologies to the market.

He is often the first point of contact for startups at Tech Innovations and is razor sharp when it comes to investment evaluation and agreements.

In his previous avatar, he was a Property and Energy Underwriter, working with various stakeholders from Channel Partners to SME Clients, and providing support on the Underwriting and Product front.

He holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA), specializing in Finance from IBS, Hyderabad and a B.Com, specializing in Accounting and Finance, from Loyol College, Chennai.

Chief Operating Officer

P. Swaminathan

Swami heads the operations of the financial services business at Tech Innovations. He is a qualified banker (CAIIB), who brings with him over three decades of rich & varied experience in the field of core banking, banking technology, retail payment technology and management. 

Swami has been associated with Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services since its inception and has been the key driver in scaling the business multi-fold and expanding its presence Pan India in partnership with multiple public and private financial institutions.

He was formerly with Financial Software & Systems Pvt. Ltd., and Andhra Bank, handling a wide variety of roles, including project management, pre-sales, corporate office, IT and general banking. 

He is a Mathematics graduate from the University of Madras.

Chief Financial Officer

K. Sasikumar

Sasi heads finance at Tech Innovation. He brings with him over three decades of experience in the field of accounts, audit and general administration.

He was formerly with Star Health and Allied Insurance, Hi Tours, Mamallapuram, Century Consultants (India) Galadari Sons and West Asia Commercial House-Dubai. 

K. Sasikumar has been associated with Commonwealth Inclusive Growth Services Ltd., since its inception and has been instrumental in creating a sustainable and profitable venture at scale.

He holds his masters in Economics & Commerce from the University of Calicut.

Head of Compliance and Secretariat Practice

P. Ranganathan

Ranganathan heads compliance and secretarial practice at Tech Innovations. He brings with him over three-and-a-half decades of rich and varied experience, both in India and Nigeria, having led companies as their head of finance and operations. 

He was the head of finance of a leading group of industries in Nigeria for about six years. Prior to that, he was in-charge of operations of a leading trading company in Nigeria, for about two decades. Further to this, he has also handled the IPO of a Delhi-based manufacturing company, as its Company Secretary.

He has, previously, worked with Shipping Corporation of India, Tata Share Registry and a Mumbai based Industrial Valve Manufacturer, handling different roles in Accounts.

Ranganathan is a commerce graduate from the University of Madras, a qualified cost & management accountant (ACMA / AICWA) and company secretary (ACS).

P.N. Vijay

Mr.Vijay is an Investment Banker with 48 years of experience in investment banking, lending, corporate governance banking and public affairs. 

During this period he has worked on countless fund raising, M&A and corporate restructuring transactions both in India and Overseas. He has also been on several boards and board committees and with regulators on corporate governance.

Mr. Vijay started his career with State Bank and then moved on to ANZ Grindlays and then on to Citibank where he was the country head (Merchant Banking) India. 

He then started his own company PN Vijay Financial Services P Ltd. PNVF provides investment banking and wealth management services. These include helping clients raise equity/debt, M&A and also portfolio management.

He does TV shows on investments in business channels and contributes columns to newspapers and periodicals.

Mr. Vijay has also been active in Public Affairs for the last 30+ years sharing his views on the Political Economy. During this period he was actively associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party as Convenor of its National Economic Cell and later as a National Spokesperson.

Van Huff

s a senior technology executive, Van has managed multinational teams and essential systems in the FinTech / payment technology space. His three decades of financial technology experience includes direct involvement in domestic and international new business initiatives

Van served as the Chief Information Officer for FleetCor from 2004 through 2011. He was ultimately responsible for all internal and externally facing systems for the corporation. As a member of the executive team, he was tasked with aligning all technology efforts with the company’s aggressive growth objectives.

Van was responsible for FleetCor’s technology as the company transformed from a private “one country / one system” organization to a public multinational entity. During that time Van led the technology diligence of three major acquisitions in the UK, the Czech Republic, and Russia, as well as several smaller US and European acquisitions.

During his tenure at FleetCor, the company grew from a private entity valued at ~$200M to a public corporation valued at over $1B.

Prior to FleetCor, Van spent 20 years at First Data Corporation in the Card Services Information Technology division. During that time, First Data grew from a U.S. based private company to a publicly traded multinational payments leader. Van’s executive experience at First Data was primarily focused on the on-boarding of major new clients – and on the development and support of product systems for existing clients.

Van currently sits on the board of a leading-edge logistics services business. He is also an advisor to an environmental technology company. In addition, he is a member of a private investment firm focused on business to business services.

Gopalakrishna Navneetha

Gopi is a serial entrepreneur with three successful exits in technology and technology-enabled ventures, and was instrumental in creating over 700 jobs. Gopi is also a serial investor, in a personal capacity, with 5 exits (out of 7 investments made) ranging from 1.5X to 4X in an average of 3 years. 

Gopi comes with substantial global expansion experience – He has successfully opened operations/ expanded his business footprint into Mexico, Singapore, UK, India, Nigeria, Middle East and USA. He has led the successful acquisition and merger of two entities into his parent company.

Gopi’s previous entrepreneurial ventures include eCommerce for plastics industry, portal, technology consulting focused on Y2K services and Voice Biometric solution for telecom industry.

Gopi was a core member who organized the first US / India Friendship Summit in the Midwest in collaboration with Creighton University. The summit had two main focus areas, namely economic and socio-political impact in this corridor. He was also a participant in the first Innovation campus / Incubator centre set up in Omaha – the Silicon Prairie of the USA.

Gopi is a mentor for students at UNO business school guiding them to complete final year projects and internships. He has been assisting both undergraduate and graduate level students.

Dr. Mack Ramachandran

Mack is an entrepreneur and an early carbon offset business owner with over 25 years of experience building community programs in developing countries for emergency relief and long-term sustainability. He ran large teams (hundreds of staff) across many countries (Sudan, DPR Korea, etc.), delivering on complex food security programs. His expertise is large-scale project management in developing countries and leveraging markets and technology for the greater good.

He has worked for the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) for about 20 years. He has held senior positions in supply chain planning and retail supply chain operations at the Rome headquarters and program operations at his local office, where he has worked on humanitarian aid and long-term poverty resolution. From 2011 to 2013, he established a company called offset4poor in the United States, utilizing WFP’s leave of absence system. The company has launched a carbon offset business that enables the efficient use of fuel-efficient cooking stoves for women in Bangladesh and Mongolia. Ph.D. in Economics, Clark University, USA.

Mack also ran his own carbon offset business out of New York (2011-2012), developing an iPhone app that allowed Americans to offset their carbon footprint while paying women in Mongolia and Bangladesh to make fuel-efficient cookstoves. He was also part of the 95,000 cookstove project in Darfur, Sudan (2010). He was involved in soil carbon projects in Ethiopia in 1997, and many tree planting projects across many countries.

He has previously worked in the Philippines while he was working for the United Nations WFP. The project aimed to support the peace process by providing food assistance to conflict-affected areas in Mindanao.