Dr. Bharath Krishna Sankar Chairman

Dr. Bharath is a postgraduate in Commerce, a national gold medalist (topper in both Inter and Final) in Chartered Accountancy and an Associate of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of India. His doctoral thesis is on “Determinants of entrepreneurship and its impact on MSME sector sustainability in Madurai district”.

Bharath is an exceptional coach and mentor, with passion for developing and nourishing the entrepreneurial spirit in youngsters. Bharath’s areas of specialization include human resource development, financial management and facilitation of change management through organizational development interventions. He penned a column ‘Smilingly yours’ in The Hindu –Metroplus, which was a series of management insights for young entrepreneurs and established businessmen alike.

He was the recipient of TiE Chennai’s “Entrepreneur of the year” award for 2015. He is the Past Chairman of the Madurai Zone of CII and the Vice Chairman of ‘Celebrate Madurai’ Committee. He is the Board Chair of Michigan Academy for Development of Entrepreneurs, USA and is on the Governing Board of Thiagarajar School of Management.

Kunisetty Venkata RamakrishnaDirector

Ramki is an Advisor to Xcelerate and he is a Director on the Board of Aparajitha Corporate Services Private Limited, the Indian subsidiary of Xcelerate.M

Ramki has 28+ years of experience with 26+ years of experience in Venture Capital /Private Equity - Kotak PE, Carlyle Group & ICICI Venture. He was most recently the CEO of Kotak Private Equity, the Private Equity arm of Kotak Mahindra Group, where he was responsible for managing various growth funds with AUM of over $700mn.

Ramki is a Computer Science and Engineering graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal and is a Post Graduate in Management from IIM, Bangalore.

His investment experience spans across Life Sciences, Technology, Retailing and Services and has developed a strong network in these segments. He actively participates on the Boards of his portfolio companies and has helped them scale the businesses while managing growth.

Prior to joining the Kotak Mahindra group, Ramki had stints with Carlyle Asia Venture Partners (CAVP), the Carlyle Group's technology-focused fund, and ICICI Venture, the PE and VC arm of the ICICI Group. Post his graduation, Ramki worked for two years at the Management Services Division of Tata Motors, the largest automobile company in India.

Yogesh Bhura Director

Yogesh has over 23 years of experience in corporate advisory, risk management, and financial advisory in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

A serial entrepreneur, he co-founded, financed, and managed since 2001 three of Asia’s most successful anti-corruption risk and compliance businesses, namely Quest Research, IntegraScreen, and Dataflow — all of which were sold to strategic buyers/private equity after scaling at regional and global levels.

Besides serving on the Board of Aparajitha, Yogesh is also

a Director on the Board of ethiXbase, an anti-bribery and anti-corruption third-party platform provider based in Singapore,

an Advisor to EQT — the world’s leading private equity fund.

Prior to starting his entrepreneurship journey, he worked in custodial operations and finance and wealth management.Yogesh is a Chartered Accountant and a Certified Oracle Financial Consultant.

Dinesh Ramachandran Joint Managing Director

Dinesh Ramachandran is the Joint Managing Director of T V Sundram Iyengar & Sons Limited and Managing Director of TVS Logistics Services Limited. He is also the Director for various joint ventures / subsidiaries of these companies. A commerce graduate and an Associate member of both Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India, Dinesh has had a wide experience within the Group and as is the tradition in the family, worked his way up in the organization ladder.

Currently, the companies under his management have a turnover of USD 1.40 billion (INR 6,100 crores) and employs around 10,000 people. Dinesh has been instrumental for the companies expanding their operations globally and he has set up subsidiaries in Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Thailand, Bangladesh and United States of America.

T V Sundram Iyengar & Sons Limited is the parent company of TVS Group. The total turnover of the Group is USD 6.0 Billion and the group employs around 40,000 people. The group operates in diverse fields ranging from two-wheeler and automotive component manufacturing to automotive dealerships, finance & electronics and is the leading automobile distributor in India. Dinesh has been elected as Chairman of CII Tamil Nadu State Council for the year 2012-13. He is the Convenor of Infrastructure Panel, CII Tamil Nadu and is a member of the CII Southern Regional Council. He was awarded as an ‘Emerging Entrepreneur’ by CII during April 2010.

Dinesh is also a member of Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (FADA) and other management / automobile institutions.

Kazi Arif Uz ZamanManaging Director

Kazi Arif Uz Zaman has been serving as a Nominee Director on the board of Aparajitha since 2014. Kazi formerly served as Managing Director in the private equity team of Everstone Capital Advisors leading coverage of South India for Everstone based out of Bangalore. Everstone is a premier India focused alternative asset manager with assets under management in excess of US$2.5 billion dedicated to private equity and real estate.

Kazi has 22 years of experience in private equity, M&A and investment banking with organisations such as Everstone, ICICI Venture and ANZ Grindlays Bank / ANZ Investment Bank. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and is a CFA charter holder from CFA Institute, U.S.A.

Nagaraj KrishnanManaging Director

Nagaraj Krishnan is the Managing Director of Aparajitha Corporate Services Private Limited. He graduated in Mathematics from The American College, Madurai in 1993. He went on to pursue Masters in Social Work (specializing Human Resource) from the Madurai Institute of Social Sciences and then completed his Masters in Business Administration (specializing Human Resource and Marketing) from Thiagarajar School of Management.

Nagaraj has been instrumental in conceptualizing Aparajitha ’s business framework and leading it through. His expertise in labour & industrial laws along with a blend of logical process oriented approach and people focused leadership has positioned Aparajitha as the market leader in “Compliance Knowledge Process Outsourcing Services” in India. Nagaraj is recognized as thought leader for organizing corporate labour and industrial legal compliance as an organized industry in the country from the year 2000.

He was part of the CII - YI’s Indian delegation at the G20 Young Entrepreneurship Summit held at Niece – France (2011) and Mexico City – Mexico (2012). He was the Founder Chairman of Yi – CII, Madurai chapter. He is the Chairman of CII Madurai Chapter (2019-2020) and active in different forums in CII at the regional and national level, in various capacities.

Nagaraj has been awarded as ‘Entrepreneur of the Year – 2015’ by TieCon; and featured as ‘Social Entrepreneur – 2011’ in Outlook Magazine. Under his leadership, Aparajitha has been recognised as the Top 500 SME Companies in the year 2012, 2013 and Top 100 SME Companies in the year 2015. Aparajitha is one of the few companies from the South Tamil Nadu to attract private equity investment from the Singapore based global player Everstone Capital.

With the determined dream to digitalise compliance management across organizations around the Globe, and with a vision for a standardized e-compliance platform – ‘Compfie’ was born. It is a brain child of Nagaraj and is designed to have a unique and powerful combination of up-to-date compliance knowledge, with the ability to be deployed and used across geographies and industrial sectors, relevant to both large global organizations and small establishments.

In a very short span of time “Compfie” has been recognized and won many awards including the CII award for the Top 25 innovative product(2019-20), 10 Most reliable Risk and Compliance Tech Solution providers - 2019 and the 20 Most promising GRC solutions Providers in India – 2019.

Nagaraj is one of the Trustees in Aparajitha Foundations which is the CSR arm of Aparajitha Corporate Services, dedicated to the cause of transforming youth by imparting training for right attitude and greater awareness about their life. For a decade now the organisation has been making dedicated and effective efforts to build a stronger community through various programs.

Nagaraj is an avid sportsperson who passionately promotes Badminton and Golf.

Venkatesh Srinivasan (Venky) Managing Director

Venkatesh Srinivasan (Venky) is a Managing Director in the private equity team of Everstone Capital Advisors, based out of Mumbai. Everstone is a premier India focused alternative asset manager with assets under management in excess of US$1.8 billion dedicated to private equity and real estate.

Venky has over 16 years of experience in consulting, financial services, operations and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining Everstone, Venky worked with Future Capital Holdings as COO, at McKinsey as an Associate Partner in the financial services practice serving clients across India, China and South East Asia, and at Procter and Gamble in Category Marketing, Business Development and Demand Planning. Venky has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM-Ahmedabad and a Bachelors Degree in Engineering from Mumbai University.

KV Ramanand Director

KV is presently the Chief Executive Officer at XLSure India Private Limited, a 100% subsidiary of Xcelerate Pte Ltd, a Singapore headquartered Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC) and Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) focused operating and investing platform.

Prior to this, KV was leading the Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity practice of Ernst & Young LLP in the South region of India.

KV joined Ernst & Young initially in June 2000 and was part of the Corporate Finance team till September 2009. In September 2009, KV joined KPMG as a Partner to set up and lead the Corporate Finance practice of KPMG in South India.

KV returned to Ernst & Young LLP in September 2016 as Partner M&A and Private Equity leading its southern practice.

KV started his career in 1996 with Ind Global Financial Trust Ltd (IGFT), a boutique Investment Bank and was with IGFT till June 2000. IGFT was subsequently acquired by Arthur Andersen.

During his career with EY, KPMG, and IGFT, KV was involved in several private equity/ structured debt funding transactions, and inbound & outbound M&A transactions across multi-culture, multi-regulatory environments. He also has significant capital market experience as he has handled several IPOs, Rights Issues, Open Offers and Buyback offers.

Dr. Venkatraman Anantha Nageswaran Financial Analyst

Anantha-Nageswaran graduated with a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1985. He obtained a doctoral degree in Finance from the University of Massachusetts in 1994 for his work on the empirical behaviour of exchange rates.

Between 1994 and 2004, he worked for Union Bank of Switzerland (now UBS) and for Credit Suisse in Switzerland and in Singapore. In July 2006, he joined Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. in Singapore as the Head of Research for Asia. In March 2009, he was appointed as the Chief Investment Officer for the bank. For about seven year from July 2011, he was a writer, consultant and teacher. In October 2018, he joined the IFMR Business School (Krea University) in Sri City as its Dean.

He had been an adjunct faculty with the Singapore Management University and with the Wealth Management Institute at the Nanyang Technological University. He is a member of the Board of Directors of several companies in India, including TVS Logistics and TVS Sri Chakra Ltd. In Singapore, he is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of NPS International School.

He helped co-found Aavishkaar Venture Capital (Venture Capital Investor in Social Enterprises) and the Takshashila Institution (a public policy think-tank cum teaching institute).

His co-authored book, ‘Economics of Derivatives’ and ‘Derivatives’ were published by the Cambridge University Press in March 2015 and October 2017 respectively. Another co-authored work, ‘Can India grow?’ has been published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in November 2016. ‘The rise of Finance: Causes, Consequences and Cures’ is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.

He writes a weekly column for MINT, an Indian financial daily, on Tuesdays( www.livemint.com ).