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Board of Directors
Promod Haque, Managing Partner, Norwest Venture Partners
Promod has 20 years of experience in the venture capital industry and currently serves as managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. He joined Norwest Venture Partners in 1990. He has been ranked as a top dealmaker on the annual Forbes Midas List for the past nine years, and in 2004, Forbes named him as the #1 venture capitalist based on performance over the last decade. In 2006, Promod was presented with a Global Leadership award from NASSCOM.
Promod has 20 years of experience in the venture capital industry and currently serves as managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. He joined Norwest Venture Partners in 1990. He has been ranked as a top dealmaker on the annual Forbes Midas List for the past nine years, and in 2004, Forbes named him as the #1 venture capitalist based on performance over the last decade. In 2006, Promod was presented with a Global Leadership award from NASSCOM.
Promod focuses on investments in semiconductor and components, systems, software and services. He was an early investor and a board member of Cerent (acquired by Cisco), Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola) and Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR).
His current investments include Adventity, AmberPoint, Appnomic Systems, Cast Iron Systems, Cyan Optics, FireEye, Persistent Systems, Sonoa Systems, Sulekha, Veveo, Virtela Communications and Yatra. Other notable investments and previous board seats include Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape), Information Advantage (acquired by Sterling Software), Arbortext (acquired by PTC), Open-Silicon (acquired by Unicorn Investment Bank), Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), Showcase (acquired by SPSS), Yipes (acquired by Reliance/Flag Telecom) and ZettaCom (acquired by IDT).
Prior to Norwest Venture Partners, Promod spent 18 years in various operational roles ranging from product development, marketing, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer at various public and private companies - Siemens International, Thorn EMI, Emergent Technologies and Dimensional Medicine, Inc.
He received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Delhi, India. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where he serves on the advisory board.
Dhruv Shringi, Co Founder & CEO - Yatra
Dhruv Shringi is the Co-Founder & CEO Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd. Dhruv leads the company's business initiatives across continents.
Dhruv in a very short span of time, by making innovations in the field of travel and tourism, has made his unique identity in the online travel industry. He has contributed actively in rejuvenating the methods of the industry. Since its successful launch in January 2006, Dhruv, has lead Yatra.com to grow from a 3 member organisation to a 1,400 people strong organisation - thus making Yatra.com the leading travel brand in the country. In 2011, Dhruv was listed by Fortune magazine amongst the top 40 CEO's in India and he currently also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Internet and Mobile Association of India.
His most recent role prior to Yatra.com was as Director Group Operations and Technology of the Ebookers Group in London, where he led a team of over 600 people and was responsible for sales of $850 million achieved through across channels including online, call centers and retail shops.
Prior to his stint at Ebookers, he worked with Ford Motor Company in their Business Strategy team based in London, where he was part of the European Business Turnaround team. He also has significant work experience in India having spent over 6 years with Arthur Andersen based in their office in Delhi. Dhruv holds an MBA from INSEAD and is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.
Dhruv is an avid reader and enjoys playing golf in his leisure time.
Mr. Harshal Shah, CEO, Reliance Venture Asset Management Ltd.
Mr. Harshal Shah has been with Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group since June 2005 and spearheads the Group’s corporate venture capital arm as Chief Executive Officer, Reliance Venture Asset Management Ltd.
With over 15 years of experience across technology, finance and marketing, Mr. Shah has been responsible for building Reliance Venture Asset Mangement into one of the Top 100 Venture Capital Firms of the World (Winner, Red Herring Top 100 Global Venture Capital Firms). It has been ranked as #30 among 1800 competitors from 32 countries, and across 12 benchmarks. Reliance Venture Asset Management is the only corporate venture capital firm from India in the List, and the first one in Red Herring's history. By incubating start-ups through Reliance Venture Asset Management, Mr. Shah has built household names such as Yatra Online, which itself is today a Rs. 1000 crore plus company, Suvidhaa Infoserve, Scalable Display etc., and has forged alliances and investments in India, the US, Europe and the Far East.
Prior to joining Reliance, Mr. Shah has held various positions at IBM Global Strategy (USA), Northstar Global Partners (USA), Infostakes, Inc. (USA and India), and Accenture (USA, Singapore, Hong Kong). At IBM, he went through leadership training and led a team reporting to the CEO, to restructure IBM to become solutions driven, with increased focus on India. At Infostakes, a private company he founded, he grew its net worth by 9000% in 3 years.
Mr. Shah has advised and invested in deals worth several billion dollars. He is on the Boards of UK-based, eWaveWorld Ltd. (now, Reliance WiMAX World), where Reliance is investing $500 million to bring broadband internet to 50 countries by 2012; Stoke, Inc., a US based developer of fixed-mobile convergence solutions, Yatra Online, Inc., India’s largest online travel consolidator, several other US private companies; and Setco Automotive Ltd.,
which is a fast growing, leading, listed company on the Bombay Stock Exchange with global aspirations. Mr. Shah was a Truman Gray Scholar at MIT and MIT Sloan School of Management from which he has two Bachelors' degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Management. He has an MBA in Finance and Strategy from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and is an alumnus of the prestigious, Phillips Academy in Andover, USA.
Mr. Shah lives in Mumbai, India with his wife Urja, and one-year old son, Hrehan. Mrs. Shah is a fashion designer from the Parsons School of Design, New York, and a graduate from Duke University, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Kodaikanal International School. She was also accepted into the PhD program at Stanford.
Sarbvir Singh, Managing Director, Capital18
Sarbvir Singh, 38 years is the Managing Director of Capital18. Sarbvir has 14 years of global experience in investment management and business operations. He started his career with Emerson Electric in Hong Kong, responsible first for business development across Asia and then marketing in China. Subsequently, he spent five years with Citigroup in New York, where he was responsible for making investments in the global consumer sector.
As the Managing Director of Capital18, Sarbvir has been responsible for identifying, investing in and scaling up ventures that meet the investment philosophy of Capital18. Over the past two years, Capital18 has emerged as one of the leading venture capital players in the media & entertainment space and is recognized as a partner of choice for high growth companies across the sector.
He holds a degree in business management from IIM Ahmedabad and is a graduate of IIT Delhi.
