A Global Community of South Asian Professional Women
The Neythri Founding Circle
Our Founding Circle is the foundation of the Neythri community and champions the work we do. The Founding Circle provides support for the growth and development of the organization from our inaugural year and beyond.
The Neythri Founding Circle comprises of a stellar group of remarkable women who are committed to supporting us as we provide an action-oriented and encouraging environment for South Asian women to thrive, and to elevate their leadership and impact.
Aarti has been an angel/impact investor and advisor for the last 12 years. Before that, she held executive positions at technology companies, where she led global IT teams. Companies she has worked at include Oracle, Hitachi, Coherent, Autodesk, and Nikon. Currently, she co-leads Impact Investing for Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund. She has been a guest lecturer for an Impact Investing course at Stanford and teaches a seminar series course in Impact Investing at the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU.
Aarti serves on the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University. She is a board member at Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, Peninsula Bridge, and Teen Success Inc. She is also on the advisory board at GSBI Miller Center and a member at MIT-Solve. Aarti holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Bombay University and an M.S. in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University.
Akanksha is Product Management Executive, strong P&L operator, #silo-busting transformation leader and has built and scaled enterprise SaaS products profitably to double-digit growth. She has over 16 years of leadership experience across product management, portfolio strategy, digital & business model transformation at GE Digital and Deloitte. She is recognized across GE as a #talent-magnet who brings the best out of teams of all caliber. Akanksha is also a Digital Transformation thought leader and speaker. Above else, she is first a #servant-leader and takes pride in transforming teams and individual’s impact trajectories through her intentional investment in their success.
An advocate for professional women in technology, Akanksha set-up and ran GE Digital’s Women’s Network in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is an avid long distance hiker and health/nutrition/fitness coach to women.
Akanksha is General Management MBA from Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia with Bachelor of Technology (Electrical Engineering) from Aligarh Muslim University, India. Akanksha also coaches and mentors start-ups in the Bay Area through www.briia.io.
Ana Agneshwar brings over twenty years of corporate hiring experience to her role as CEO of Aimient — an executive search firm based in NYC. She was previously in leadership roles at companies like Citi, MSG, and Netpixel where she was responsible for talent practices and building out high performing teams. Ana is co-founder of Andro which humanizes virtual experiences through digital avatars.
Ana believes that purpose and profit can coexist. She is passionate about creating a more equitable funding and entrepreneurial ecosystem. She is an angel investor in multiple women owned start-ups and serves as the NYC chapter lead for Pipeline Angels and as an LP and advisor to Opportunity Hub.
Ana Arun is the Chief Revenue Officer at Lifestyle Solutions Inc. She has an extensive background in sales operations, product development and marketing. She plays a pivotal role in growing new business sales, structuring client based sales, and formulating partner strategies. Along with her work at Lifestyle Solutions, she also serves on the board of Coddle Inc, a California-based B2C retail startup.
As a proud Founding Circle Member of Neythri, Ana aspires to help, coach and build strong women leaders across different verticals. She is a strong believer in coaching and goal-based management. Throughout her career, she has always emphasized and promoted equal opportunities for people from all walks of life.
Ana has an MBA in Finance and Information Systems from the University of Pune in India.
Archana Ramamoorthy is the Chief Technology Officer, North America, at Workday. Since joining Workday in 2013, she’s led strategy, design, and development for the company’s portfolio of cybersecurity products, while also helping define the technology innovation path for Workday’s key customers. In her current role, Archana focuses on helping customers and prospects get the most value out of Workday through industry engagements and driving digital transformation strategy with customers, and by being the liaison between prospects, product, and technology teams. She leads key initiatives to further Workday’s technology mission, including defining the company’s adoption of emerging standards and practices.
Prior to joining Workday, Archana held product and engineering roles building hardware and software products for companies like AT&T, Triangle Biosystems, and Deutsche Bank.
Archana received a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from SRM University in India.
Ayesha Mathews Wadhwa is Design Director at VMware (via the recent Carbon Black acquisition). She is a proven leader in an executive role, delivering successful projects across Brand, Design & Digital Products. Her experience includes leading and building creative teams, managing P&L, external agencies, and overseeing Design Operations. She’s been published in Forbes, Women 2.0, YourStory.in, and Branding Magazine.
A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Ayesha’s experience includes crafting strategy and creative direction for companies like Apple, Amazon, Databricks, Facebook, Sephora, Capital One, Transunion, and The Smithsonian. She founded the creative consultancy – PIXINK in 2009, that was acquired in 2015 by Fact0ryX. Ayesha joined Carbon Black as Design Director in November 2016 and got a surprise promotion to Mom in February 2017! Ayesha currently serves on the Asian Art Museum’s Board Marketing Committee & advises at Prototype Thinking Labs. She lives in Berkeley, CA with her husband and son.
Bhanu Narasimhan is Senior Director for Product Management in Google Shopping. She manages the product data catalog that powers shopping experiences across all Google’s consumer properties (Search, YouTube & more). She previously led the consumer experience on the Shopping tab, transforming it from all ads to an ads + free property, and growing user satisfaction.
Prior to shopping, Bhanu worked on personalized ads targeting across consumer properties, and ensured appropriate handling of user data within Ads. Before this, she led multiple product areas in Google Ads, including AdWords Conversion Tracking, Bid Strategies, and the AdWords API, making significant improvements to the systems used by our largest advertisers. Prior to Google Ads, Bhanu worked on tools to fight spam & abuse across Google’s consumer apps, and on Google Video.
Prior to Google, Bhanu worked as a strategy consultant at Marakon Associates, and then wore multiple hats at Instantis, a software startup that was acquired by Oracle. Bhanu has a bachelor’s degree in Math from Dartmouth College, and a masters in Economics from MIT.
Bhawna Singh is a senior technology executive with 20 years of experience in successfully building and leading talented teams of engineers to transform and scale technology for a global user base. Bhawna have led multiple tech transformations, scaled systems from 0 to 100 million monthly users, led global expansion of products, participated in multiple acquisitions and spearheaded innovation to drive user growth and engagement delivering multi million dollar revenue growth.
Bhawna is SVP of Engineering & CTO of Glassdoor, responsible for technological innovation overseeing the company’s websites and mobile platforms, in addition to its software engineering, data platform and machine learning teams.
Bhawna holds master’s degrees in software engineering from San Jose State University and in computer applications from Gujarat University, in addition to a bachelor’s degree in electronics from Gujarat University.
Devika Patil is a Managing Director in the Venture Capital Relationship Group at Silicon Valley Bank. Her financial wheelhouse includes tailored strategic capital solutions and proprietary, operational, tactical and industry insights. Devika is passionate about building and cultivating relationships with the VC community and working with CEOs and founders across all sectors. Prior to joining SVB in 2018, Devika was a VP and West Coast corporate banking head of the gaming and homebuilding group at The Royal Bank of Scotland. She launched her career at J.P. Morgan as an investment banker. Devika is on the Board of Fellows at The Harker School, one of the nation’s top K-12 schools, located in Silicon Valley. She is also the Digital Ambassador at the Institute for Education, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit, whose mission is to recognize and promote leadership, civility and finding common ground, locally, nationally and globally. She is currently a member of the Town of Atherton’s Audit and Finance Committee and on the Advisory Board of AllRaise, a non-profit with a mission to accelerate the success of female founders and funders to build a more prosperous, equitable future.
Enakshi Singh brings over twenty years of experience in strategic finance to her role as Chief Financial Officer at Zymergen. She has helped Zymergen close more than $1B in equity financing and $100M in debt since joining Zymergen as vice president of finance in 2014, fueling the company’s early growth, testing, de-risking, and product development.
Prior to Zymergen, Enakshi served as SVP, Asset Management at Mubadala Development Company, Abu Dhabi’s $230B sovereign wealth fund, where she led complex semiconductor investments involving specialized manufacturing and unique investment and scaling models. Her prior experience was in finance and strategic financial management, as a VP of technology investment banking at Merrill Lynch and an analyst for Latin American investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney. She received a B.A. in economics at Cornell University and an M.B.A. at MIT Sloan School of Management.
Dr. Geetha Murali is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children.® As Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Geetha oversees Room to Read’s global operations, which include programmatic work in 16 countries, a global network of investors and volunteer chapters, and a worldwide staff of more than 1,600 employees.
Geetha is a member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council, the Young President’s Organization (YPO), and has been recognized by WIRED as a leader who will shape the next 25 years. She serves on the board of directors for the Global Press Institute and the board of advisors for COHORT3.
Geetha received her master’s degree in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master’s and doctorate degrees in South Asian Politics from the University of California at Berkeley. She has also held an Adjunct Faculty position at Mills College.
Geetu is the Founder and Investment Manager at AlphasFuture LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor in the US. AlphasFuture manages equity portfolios for HNW Individuals, Foundations and Small Business clients with a focus on sustainable investing.
Geetu has nearly two decades experience in the global financial markets across Asia, UK and Europe and in the US. Prior to starting AlphasFuture, Geetu was co-managing $4bn global equities strategies at Pictet Asset Management in Switzerland. She has also worked with Credit Suisse and Standard & Poor’s in areas including equity research, credit research and institutional sales.
With AlphasFuture, Geetu aims to leverage her investing experience to increase awareness about global sustainability challenges and help her clients earn superior risk adjusted returns whilst “Investing with Purpose”.
Geetu is an MBA from London Business School (Dean’s List). She lives in Edina / Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters.
Isha Abdullah is a physician, entrepreneur and philanthropist driven by excellence. She has navigated her life balancing a career with raising a young family while traveling globally for her family business.
Trained as a nephrologist and internist at Stanford University, Isha practiced clinical medicine for several years at El Camino Hospital. In 2010, she co-founded a molecular diagnostic company and as CEO led it to a successful acquisition in 2014 by Immucor, a global leader in molecular diagnostic platforms. Returning to clinical practice Isha was the medical director of a Concentra clinic, and in 2020 she has joined Crossover Health, a disruptive medical company focused on bringing people, doctors and data together under one connected system of healthcare.
Wearing several hats, Isha enjoys the world of Art and Fashion and along with her husband owns a French Fashion House, Emanuel Ungaro. A firm believer in the tradition of giving back to our communities, last but not least, Isha is involved with several philanthropic projects both in her native country Pakistan and adopted home, San Francisco.
Jagadha Sivan first realized her passion for creating a positive impact on people and the planet as Head of Product at World of Good, a venture-funded, socially conscious, retail platform. As part of the leadership team, Jagadha helped generate sustainable livelihoods for thousands of artisan women in 34 countries around the world until the platform’s acquisition by eBay. She has since held key leadership and board roles, spanning multiple industries including retail, technology, food, luxury, and real estate.
She is currently the COO at ImpactMapper, an award-winning startup that helps philanthropies and corporations track the impact of the programs they support.
Jagadha believes in balancing head, heart, and hand and is always curious about the road less traveled. She enjoys playing tennis, making pottery, and exploring new cultures. She loves her morning chai and believes that the glass is always half full.
Mayfield is a top-tier venture capital firm with a fifty year history of people first investing. As marketing leader, Kamini helps entrepreneurs amplify their impact. She has been working as a messaging, public relations, and marketing executive in Silicon Valley for over thirty years. A native of Bombay, she holds a Masters in Communications from Stanford University, a Masters in English Literature from Yale University, and a Bachelors in English Literature from Elphinstone College. She lives in San Francisco where her favorite activity is forest bathing among the redwoods of Golden Gate Park.
Kirthiga Reddy brings over twenty years of experience leading technology-driven transformations to her role as an Investing Partner at SoftBank. She was Managing Director, Facebook India and South Asia for over six years, starting as their first employee in India. Her subsequent experiences at Facebook focused on emerging and high-growth markets including Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Middle East. She is co-founder of F7 seed fund. She served as Chair, Stanford Business School Management Board. She is a Board Member at Ballet and Beyond NYC. She has been recognized as Fortune India’s “Most Powerful Women” and Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business,” amongst other recognitions.
At SoftBank, Kirthiga focuses on frontier technologies—artificial intelligence, robotics, health tech, semiconductors, Internet of Things, quantum computing—that will enable the next stage of the information revolution.
Lakshmi Hari is an accomplished and versatile marketing leader with over 20 years of results-driven leadership across a wide range of industries and companies of varying scale from Fortune 500 to privately funded tech start-ups. She has marketed and scaled global multi-million dollar brands and businesses, spearheaded growth and innovation through insights and strategic new product launches in retail and e-commerce, driven evolution of business models from B2C to Enterprise with an IPO and is currently leading the reinvigoration and growth of a fintech brand in the highly competitive personal finance app space at Quicken Inc. Besides her drive for addressing fast-paced business challenges, Lakshmi is passionate about spreading mindfulness and well-being as a certified Yoga teacher. She is active in giving back to her local community whether it be serving on the school PTA board, mentoring students from her alma mater or supporting art through organizations such as the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. She received an M.B.A from the UCLA Anderson School for Management and a degree in Communications Management with an emphasis in Entertainment/Media Management from the University of Southern California.
Mahak heads up Strategic Partnerships at Google where she focuses on emerging product strategy, product commercialization and growth partnership with some of the largest and most established commerce businesses in the world. She leads Women@ initiatives at Google focusing on empowering women in tech and building a sustainable culture that is diverse & inclusive. She is also a career Guru/Mentor at Google.
Prior to Google, she spent 6 years building start ups, and was most recently Head of SMB Growth@ Twitter, VP Business Development at InMobi where she helped incubate and grow revenue partnerships globally across Asia, Europe and the US. Prior to that, she worked at a Venture Capital fund focussing on renewable energy & sustainable investments in India. She started her career as a founding team member & PM of a start-up building hybrid solar power plants for rural and under-privileged people in Asia. She is an active angel investor and advises start-ups on high impact growth operations.
Mahak completed her General Management & Leadership Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Masters in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and her Bachelors in Engineering from IIT (India)
Malini Balakrishnan is the Chief Information Officer and EVP of Continuous Improvement at Borrego Solar. Her background includes over 20 years in IT leadership and change management at companies that were at critical inflection points in their growth and needed technology to inform, enable and accelerate their business transformations. These experiences have given her a broad perspective of how businesses work as well as abilities to think cross functionally, lead teams through periods of rapid growth and change, put the business value of technology first, distill complexity and communicate clearly. She is always looking to deploy these skills in roles where she can have an impact.
Malini has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Anna University and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Malini is often the only woman of color on executive teams and is also the mother of a high school daughter in robotics. As a result, she is passionate about empowering women to overcome self-doubt and realize their true potential. She is also an advocate for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, serving as the executive spokesperson for D&I efforts both inside and outside her company.
Manisha leads the team building Oracle’s People Analytics Product Suite, used by Oracle’s customers. She is on a mission to empower leaders and employees to create healthy, high-performing companies that scale, for which she collaborates with business and HR leaders worldwide. Manisha’s career has been a journey of chasing the “Whys” of value creation and capture. She has built teams and products that improve how we connect, collaborate, and grow. Before joining Oracle, she led global roles and built multi-million-dollar products for LinkedIn, eBay, and early-stage startups. An entrepreneur with a successful exit, Manisha holds an MBA from Wharton and an MS in Computer Science. A frequent public speaker, author, patent holder, mentor, and mother, she loves traveling and enriching life with technology, psychology, and philanthropy.
Mansi H. Shah has a talent for resolving complex disputes and understanding obscure technologies, and has achieved numerous victories for her clients and is known for her professionalism, creative approach to solving challenges, and zealous advocacy. She has proven herself not only a respected law partner, but also a dedicated advocate, mentor, and leader within the legal and tech communities. Mansi has endeavored to improve the racial and gender diversity in both law firms and technology companies. A dynamic yet humble leader, Ms. Shah’s tireless efforts at mentoring those in the legal profession and in the business world, and raising awareness of the challenges they face, have truly benefited and lifted others. Mansi serves as a board member in several local and national organizations, including South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA), International Senior Lawyers Project, Ecumenical Hunger Program, and Facing History and Ourselves.
Minoti is a Senior Investment Analyst working for the Pension Boards United Church of Christ (PBUCC), a $4.5B pension and endowment based in New York City. Her responsibilities include asset allocation, and manager selection in all asset classes with a particular emphasis on ESG and impact-related investments. Prior to the PBUCC, Minoti was a Senior Investment Officer at Dallas ERF and a Research Analyst at Neuberger Berman.
Minoti received her BBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Chicago. While completing her MBA, Minoti was the Co-Chair of the South Asian Business Group, and a career advisor. In 2017, Minoti was named by Chief Investment Officer as one of the “Top 40 under 40”. She was also recently invited to a “Women on Boards” initiative. Besides enjoying spending time with her husband and two children, she likes playing tennis, traveling, and experiencing new cultures and cuisines.
As Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing, Monica drives the global go-to-market (GTM) engine for Nutanix including strategy, messaging, thought leadership, category creation, marketing campaigns, sales enablement and programs. Monica’s responsibilities include driving the marketing growth and direction of the company as well as continuing to generate brand awareness and evolving the positioning across Nutanix’s suite of products.
Prior to Nutanix, Monica’s tenure included a two decade career at Oracle where she launched several solutions to the market including Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud, Oracle Linux, and Oracle VM.
An advocate for women in technology and leadership, she currently serves on the board of Watermark, and the Indian Business & Professional Women, a non-profit support network for South Asian women. Her accolades include “2017 Powerful Women of the Bay” and “2017 Women of Influence” by The Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Monica holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Malaviya National Institute of Technology India and an MBA from San Jose State University.
Dr. Nandini Gondhalekar is a nonprofit leader with 15 years of diverse experience raising millions in funds annually for a variety of nonprofits. She grew up in Mumbai, India as part of a family deeply committed to and active in community service, social justice and advocacy. This early experience has profoundly influenced her career and professional decisions. Nandini joined Stanford’s Office of Development when she first moved to the Bay Area. She honed her fundraising and nonprofit management skills at Stanford and brought that experience to a variety of local nonprofits, including the San Carlos Education Foundation where she served as a Board member and President. Nandini is currently the Senior Director of Individual Giving at LifeMoves, one of the largest nonprofits in the Bay Area serving families and individuals experiencing homelessness. She is also a sustaining member of the Junior League of Palo Alto Mid-Peninsula and a Board member of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
As a Founding Circle member, Nandini hopes to bring together her passion for meaningful social impact and empowering women to become community leaders, to build stronger communities through a culture of service and change.
Nandini has a BA from St. Xavier’s Mumbai, and was a Commonwealth scholar at Cambridge University where she completed her M.Phil. and Ph.D. in South Asian History. A trained vocalist in Hindustani Classical Music, Nandini is also a movie and theater lover. She loves to read, travel, hike with her rescue mutt, Beau, and try new ice-cream flavors with her family.
Nandini Srinivasan was the co-founder and COO of Cactus Semiconductor, which provided innovative application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) for implantable medical applications while creating high paying jobs in the STEM field in Arizona. Cactus Semiconductor was acquired by Cirtec Medical in October 2018.
She is on the Board of Directors of Arizona Foundation for Women (AFW) whose focus is Safety, Health, and Economic Empowerment for women in Arizona.
Nandini has been a resident of Chandler, AZ for more than 30 years. Nandini is a 2015 Flinn-Brown Fellow. She holds an MSEE from the University of Hawaii and a BTech EE from IIT Bombay.
Nandini’s passion is helping small businesses and women. Nandini’s experience as a successful small business owner aligns well with Neythri’s mission of being a leader and guide for promoting and empowering women to lead.
Nithya A. Ruff is the Head of Comcast’s Open Source Program Office. She is responsible for growing Open Source culture inside of Comcast and engagement with external communities. Nithya has been director-at-large on the Linux Foundation Board for the last 3 years and was recently elected to be Chair of the Linux Foundation Board. She looks forward to advancing the mission of the Linux Foundation around building sustainable ecosystems built on open collaboration. She has been a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new people in Open Source for many years. Nithya graduated with an MS in Computer Science from NDSU and an MBA from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School. You can follow her on twitter @nithyaruff.
Paramita is a marketing executive with over 20 years of strategic and operating leadership experience in growing SaaS, Digital and E-commerce businesses in Media, IoT, Software, Cloud, Devices, and 5G related industries. She brings P&L, Go-to-Market and M&A expertise along with deep understanding of Entertainment, Education, Financial Services, Publishing and Technology markets. She is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Blurb, an ecommerce company, where she manages P&L and oversees marketing, communications, and customer service operations worldwide. Previously she held global leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies – Adobe, Nokia, and Hitachi.
Paramita is an industry speaker, Forbes contributor, startup advisor, and leadership mentor. She is also a Limited Partner at an early stage venture fund and a founding member of various women networks in Silicon Valley. Paramita was recently recognized as Top 50 Woman leader in SaaS and Asian Americans Hall of Fame Top 100.
Pragati Grover is responsible for operations, partnership development, and fundraising for Team4Tech. She has been involved in the non-profit sector for over 20 years. She brings her experience in non-profit strategy, program management, marketing strategy, marketing communications, and event management. Prior to joining the Team4Tech team, she served as the Executive Director for the India Community Center.
Additionally, for the past 17 years Pragati has served in a variety of roles in the Saratoga community – as PTA President, VP of Fundraising for Saratoga Education Foundation, and a board member of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Recreation Department. She has also served on the Saratoga Union School District Board, Saratoga Library Commission and Saratoga Planning Commission. She is the recipient of the 2011 Asian American Hero Award, for her significant contribution in the community.
Pragati holds a M.S. in Mass Communications from San Jose State University and a master’s degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Prerana is a seasoned business professional with over 25 years of strategic advisory, corporate finance, business development and strategic marketing experience. Prerana has worked for several years as an independent consultant for small technology companies and has extensive transaction experience in technology, media and telecom industries. She was an investment banker for 7 years at PaineWebber and UBS. Prior to that, she spent 4 years in the Business Development Group at Philips Electronics.
As an education entrepreneur she has founded a non-profit and a for-profit organization. For the past few years, she has been focused on the launch, growth and scaling of her small business, ‘Kidizens’ – a LEGO-based enrichment program that leverages a city- and community-building framework to experientially teach civic and economic concepts to children.
Prerana currently serves on the board of two Bay area non-profits as well as have been advising a couple of other non-profits helping them with fundraising and corporate outreach. She also chairs the Strong Schools Bond Citizens Oversight Committee for the Palo Alto Unified School District.
Prerana has a MBA from Stern, New York University in Finance and Marketing and MS in Computer Science from Iowa State University.
Priya Ghandikota has led marketing for both early stage start-ups and Fortune 100s overseeing global and regional functions of Corporate Marketing, Product Marketing, Customer Success and Brand. Now based in Silicon Valley and previously based in London, Singapore, Toronto, Mumbai and West Africa, Priya has launched a number of industry transformational products at companies including LinkedIn, BlackBerry, Oracle and Pebble. In hiring high-performing teams and in developing award-winning marketing campaigns, Priya has been recognized for her emphasis on diversity and inclusion and operating with global sensibilities when growing an international footprint for brands.
Priya is a Founding Advisor of the President’s Leadership Circle at The Asia Foundation and a Member of the Lotus Circle at The Asia Foundation which works to advance gender equality in Asia. Priya is classically trained in Indian dance (Kuchipudi) and is an avid supporter of South Asian arts. She holds a Masters degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts University) and a Bachelor (Hons) from the University of Toronto.
Priya is the Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank. As the Market Lead for India, SEA and Africa, she provides international market entry advice with a focus on technology and innovation to cross-border companies, entrepreneurs and venture capital funds in emerging markets.
Previously, Priya was Director of Early Stage Practice where she oversaw enterprise-wide university engagement strategy and closely worked with top-tier incubators and accelerators. Priya has also served as the group controller for SVB Financial Group, where she managed financial and accounting functions for all global entities. Through her work at SVB, Priya supports entrepreneurs who strive to make the world a better place, and echoes that commitment in her free time as well.
Priya serves on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters and Women Who Code. Additionally, Priya is a venture partner at XFund and an Entrepreneurship Advisor at Cornell University.
Purnima has extensive experience in building and successfully launching innovative products in the fields of cloud infrastructure, security, and enterprise mobility. She currently leads the Cloud Management Business Unit (CMBU) as its Senior Vice President and General Manager. Prior to VMware, Purnima held positions as CEO of Cavirin (cloud-security company), COO of MokaFive (desktop virtualization company), and Product Management at BMC, Marimba and LoudCloud.
Purnima is known for her unique brand of delivering business results and customer value, while building highly collaborative, innovative, and diverse teams. She holds an MBA from Stanford University, an M.S. in Computer Engineering from University of Southern California, a B.S. in Computer Engineering, and a B.A. in Classical Music. Purnima is an active public speaker, mentor and coach and serves on the Alumni Board at University of Southern California.
Radha has over 20 years of experience in semiconductors and LED lighting. She is currently Vice President of Business Development and Marketing for the CSBG Spares Product Line at Lam Research, and has held prior leadership positions at Soraa, Novellus Systems, and Applied Materials. Her broad areas of expertise include Marketing, Product Management, Engineering, and Product Development. Radha holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Radha is a change agent, team builder, lifelong learner, teacher, and mentor, adept at foreseeing risks and opportunities and initiating solutions and actions. She has a deep understanding of product line management and the product creation process. She thrives on learning from colleagues at all levels and helping people to grow their skills and abilities. Throughout her career, she has created opportunities for women and girls to develop in their careers, through mentoring, teaching, and building networks.
42Radha Sankaran is a technology executive with 25+ years of hands-on leadership experience and a proven track record in leading and managing high-performance teams with Telecom and Wireless Industry for 4G LTE, IoT and 5G technologies. Radha has a strong foundation in strategic thinking, operational excellence, and people & culture development.
She has spent 13+ years at Verizon and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Systems of Insights portfolio, leading Advanced Analytics & AI-Driven Customer Experience Strategy & Development.
Previously Radha was the Executive Director spearheading Omnichannel customer experience for all wireless assisted channels in Verizon IT resulting in annual revenues of $5B to $8B. Prior to Verizon Radha spent 13 years at AT&T/Lucent/Avaya until 2007, where she did pioneering work in the field of HDTV, Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and CRM technologies. Radha holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from SUNY, Stony Brook.
Radhika is a versatile product and general management executive with a strong track record of building new businesses at both startups and F500 companies. She is currently Executive Vice President and General Manager of Software at 3D Systems, a publicly held company focused on additive manufacturing. Previously, Radhika spent several years managing end to end P&Ls for various tech businesses. She strongly believes that together everyone achieves more, more so if the team is diverse, empowered, and knows how to play well with each other. To that end, Radhika is very passionate about the progression of women and minorities in the workplace and advocates for their cause through a combination of mentorship and sponsorship. She received her BS in Electrical and Computer Eng from Birla Institute of Technology and Science and her MBA from San Jose State University.
Radhika has started and been responsible for several critical products at Google. Starting with leading the Ads team in 2000, Radhika went on to work on core websearch, and then founded Google Images, growing it to over 1B queries/day. She then went on to build Google Travel Search to help users with their travel planning needs. An alumnus of UC, Berkeley, Radhika worked at Google since 2000 and before that at some leading technology firms like Hewlett Packard Labs and Siemens.
Radhika has always been interested in the application of technology for social impact, (especially for global health, education and conservation), and recently left Google to focus full-time on helping mission oriented startups scale. She sits on the boards of Nexleaf Analytics, Simprints, and Educate!, advises several startup CEOs including Dost, TalkingPoints, Skyven Technologies, Frances Solar, is a technical advisor to CIFF, a mentor with Unreasonable Group and Mulago Foundation, and works closely with GAVI and Google.org.
32Ramya Raghunathan is a Data & Analytics leader with over 20 years of experience in financial services, payments and retail. Most recently she was SVP of Data Science at OneMarket Network, a retail network technology company, where she built the data science and analytics organization. Prior to OneMarket Network, Ramya led the Decision Science for Visa as VP of Visa Analytics, supporting global Product, Risk and Merchant analytics functions. Before she joined Visa, Ramya led Custom Predictive Analytics for FICO.
Throughout her career, Ramya has championed professional Women’s causes and Community Giving. Ramya has an MS in Operations Research & Management Science from Case Western Reserve University and a BS in Mathematics from the University of Madras.
Ms. Clark leads the Global and Americas Transaction Banking businesses. She is responsible for strategy, sales, client service, product development, and risk management. The team provides clients with working capital management solutions. In addition, Ms. Clark serves as Bay Area President. She also recently served as Chief Transformation Officer.
Before joining the bank, she served as Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at PayPal. Previous leadership positions included roles as President of Global Business Payments and Head of Global Strategy at The Western Union Company and Chief Marketing Officer at Wells Fargo/Wachovia.
Ms. Clark serves on the Board of Directors of StanCorp Financial Group and on the Boards of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and the Bay Area Council. To further nonprofit international development, she is on the President’s Leadership Council of The Asia Foundation.
Rayman Mathoda (Ray) is Partner at Emerge Life Sciences, a life sciences foundry which creates and builds companies focused on applied genomics and protein engineering. Emerge creates novel diagnostic, therapeutic, and agricultural businesses with a special focus on those at the middle and bottom of the population pyramid. Ray is focused on building Emerge’s genomics medicines and regenerative medicine platforms.
Previously Ray served as Chief Executive Officer of Xome Holdings, a leading national provider of real estate data and services which she is credited with strategically, financially, and culturally transforming into a market leader and innovator. Prior to Xome, Ray served as Co-Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at Genesis Capital LLC, one of the nation’s leading specialty finance companies focused on commercial loans in residential real estate markets. Genesis Capital was acquired by an affiliate of Goldman Sachs in 2018. Previously, Ray was President and Chairwoman of Global Property Exchange and its wholly owned subsidiary Hudson & Marshall, an online real estate auction platform, which was sold to Fidelity National Financial in 2017.
Ray started her career at McKinsey & Company where she was co-leader of the west coast healthcare practice.
Ray is a Member of the Young President’s Organization (YPO) and of the Board of Directors of GenomeAsia100K USA. Ray has an A.B. Honors from Princeton University and a M.B.A. with Distinction from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Ray lives in the Hollywood Hills with her wife and two sets of twins and is an avid fan of Bollywood music and films.
Reema has been an advisor and investor over the last 18 years focusing on the technology sector. She is currently part of the investment team/investor at Astia. Reema is also an Advisor to the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Business School. Previously, Reema was Managing Director with Golden Seeds and an Advisor to the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley) helping launch a social impact investing course. As Managing Partner at Seligman Technology Funds from 2000 to 2010, Reema invested in software and consumer companies for the firm’s mutual/hedge funds as well as co-managed the multi-billion technology mutual fund for 4 years.
Reema serves on the boards of The Penn Arts and Sciences Ambassador Council, The Netter Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Marine Science Institute, and Lalafofofo. Reema received a BAS from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School.
Rekha Pai Kamath is an angel/impact investor as Partner and Board member at Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund. Rekha serves on the boards of Fast Forward, an Accelerator for Tech Nonprofits based in San Francisco, and Intelehealth, a tech nonprofit building Intelligent Tech for Last mile health. Prior to becoming an Impact investor, she led New Business incubation at Juniper Networks. She has 15+ years in various Corporate Strategy, Product Management, Marketing, and Product Development positions at companies such as Symantec Corp, Applied Materials, Sun Microsystems, and Procket Networks (acquired by Cisco).
Rekha has been a Mentor, Coach, Advisor, and on the Alumni Council of Techwomen.org, a US Department of State Initiative that seeks to connect global women leaders in technology with those in Silicon Valley . She is an investor and advisor to start-ups at Stanford Angels and Entrepreneurs (SA&E), at Lean LaunchPad @Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is currently mentor/advisor at MIT Solve as well previously at StartX. She holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.
Renu is a results-oriented COO with experience running P&L. At Wells Fargo, Renu was the COO for the financial institutions group and prior ran the international treasury management business. Previously, Renu was the COO at ValleyCrest companies, a leading commercial landscape services company. Renu was also the COO at Quisic, a private-equity funded e-learning company. Renu started her career as a product manager and scientist at Polaroid Corporation and was at McKinsey for over 5 years in Los Angeles and London.
Renu served as a board member and finance chair for First Graduate, a non-profit that helps students become the first in their families to graduate from college.
Renu holds a M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT. Born and raised in India and Malaysia, she graduated with a B.Tech in metallurgy from IIT, Kanpur. Renu resides in San Francisco with her family.
Rohini Chakravarthy is a Managing Partner at NewBuild Venture Capital with over 20 years of investing experience. As a Partner at NGP Capital, NEA and Intel Capital, she served on 15+ boards as an investor board member and has shepherded companies through exponential growth, successful acquisitions and IPOs.
She currently focuses on early-stage enterprise investing around the Edge Cloud, Saas and Deeptech areas. Before going into venture investing, Rohini was a hardware design engineer at Bay Networks.
Rohini received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an MS from Case Western Reserve University and a B. Tech from IIT Madras. She is deeply involved in alumni giving and active on supporting women in technology.
Rohini is a Strategy and Business Operations leader with two decades of experience in Management Consulting and Enterprise Tech with a strong impact across sectors and scale. At HeadSpin, Rohini oversaw all aspects of strategic growth including market expansion, corporate and product strategy, M&A, strategic alliances and fundraising. Previously, Rohini spent 10 years at Compass Lexecon influencing Fortune 100 companies in their M&A decisions, regulatory approvals and post-merger integration strategies. She started her career at TCS in Mumbai, followed by a stint at PwC.
Rohini is a strong advocate for diversity and safety in societies and in the workplace. She currently advises a woman founded consumer safety ratings start-up and works closely with the One Sky Giving Circle advocating for the full participation of women in global societies overcoming maternal mortality, human trafficking, sexual violence and routine daily discrimination. Closer to home, she proactively mentors women in the workplace to break out of the middle-management trap.
Roli Saxena is an operator, investor and Board member. She brings over twenty years of experience in high-growth technology companies like LinkedIn, Brex, and Clever. She is currently the President at AdRoll and leading the company through transformation to a Martech and Media company. Roli serves on the Board of Culture Amp, whose mission is to allow businesses to put culture first with data, insights, and technology.
Roli was the cofounder of the LinkedIn Women’s Network, focused on increasing women in leadership at LinkedIn. Additionally, Roli is a guest speaker at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is an angel investor. She was recognized as San Francisco Times Most Influential Women in Bay Area, won Industry Leader Award at the Professional Businesswomen of California (PBWC), and featured in Dan Heath’s, NY Times bestselling author, most recent book Upstream.
Roli has an MS Management from Stanford Business School and lives with her husband and two kids in Mountain View, California.
Roma Wadhi Ghai is Director of HR at Maxim Integrated, a leader in analog and mixed signal integrated circuits. Roma is responsible for leading people strategy for the Global Sales & Marketing, as well as Global R&D teams. Roma focuses on business results by coaching executives on leadership, attracting and retaining talent, empowering employees, and creating a compelling workplace experience. Roma has led programs that emphasize innovation, diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. Roma’s prior financial experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) provides her a unique perspective on implementing human capital management strategies to turn cost centers into revenue-producing or profit-contributing assets. Roma holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Delhi University, is a CPA in California and a Chartered Account from India.
Roma is passionate about women empowerment and mentoring children. Roma founded and now co-chairs the Women@Maxim Employee Resource Group. She serves on the Funds Committee for CASA, Child Advocates of Silicon Valley, a not for profit organization that mentors foster kids. Roma also serves on the Funds Committee at The Harker School in South Bay. In her spare time Roma enjoys travelling, gardening and listening to Audible.
As Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Office for Oracle, Rupal oversaw all aspects of corporate marketing across all product areas in the functional marketing areas of brands and campaigns, media strategy, digital and social media properties, customer marketing, martech, analytics and marketing operations. Prior to Oracle, Rupal spent over 23 years at Intel Corporation where she worked in Arizona, California, Singapore and Beijing. She spent most of that time in sales and marketing leadership roles including GM of China and GM of Data Center Sales and Marketing. An advocate for professional women around the world, she started the Women at Intel Network chapter in Singapore and was a co-chair of the Board of Intel’s Network of Executive Women in Asia.
Rupal holds a BS in Finance and International Studies from Boston College and a Master of International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Sanyogita Shamsunder is an experienced technology leader with a record of leading and deploying strategic and industry leading programs at Verizon. Prior to Verizon, she was at Bell Labs, as well as startups in the silicon and optical industry. Sanyogita’s experience spans all areas of the wireless business, including silicon, network, marketing, and product for enterprise and consumer. A sought-after speaker, Sanyogita has spoken at many conferences, including Mobile World Congress, Fierce Wireless panels and keynote, CES, Grace Hopper. She actively mentors and advocates for women in technology. In 2019, Sanyogita was featured as the Rising Star of Wireless by Fierce Wireless.
Sanyogita graduated with an MBA from the Wharton School and Ph.D in electrical engineering and math.
Sanyogita is on the advisory boards of several organizations: Board of Advisors for Intel-NSF ML in Wireless ● CTA Technology Council ● The Fabric Thought Leadership Council ● Editor for the IEEE Comm Magazine ● Eyeway Vision Board Observer ● Founder for Girls Who Code chapter ● Dean’s Advisory Board, NYIT ● ECE Advisory Board, Rutgers University.
Sapna Kapur is an experienced Strategy & Finance leader with 20+ years of experience across consumer & technology companies.
Presently, Sapna is the SVP Finance at NextRoll, where she leads the Finance organisation for this scaled, XXXM Martech/AdTech player in the DTC & B2B space. Prior to NextRoll, Sapna was a Director, Finance at Google and has held a variety of leadership roles in the Ads & Commerce Business areas within Google. Sapna also has extensive experience in Strategy consulting across both The Boston Consulting Group & Google’s Business Operations team where she was a Principal.
Sapna holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in International Business from IIFT & a Bachelor’s in Economics from the Delhi University. She lives with her family in Los Altos.
Sarika Garg is an investor and board member. Previously, she was Chief Strategy Officer at Tradeshift, where she led corporate strategy, product and marketing. During her tenure, she helped Tradeshift grow from a small 100 person startup in 2015 to a leader with a $1.2B+ valuation. She has been recognized as a Top Woman Leader in SaaS in The Software Report in both 2018 and 2019.
Sarika is passionate about SaaS, fintech, & marketplaces, and has spent her career building products that connect supply chains over the cloud. Sarika started her career at SAP and Ariba. She attributes her success to living across the world, growing up in Africa and studying and working in India and Germany. She actively mentors young and upcoming leaders.
Sejal has over 20 years of experience as a human resource and corporate strategy leader in Fortune 500’s and start-ups in the technology and financial services sectors. Sejal leverages her management consulting and human capital expertise to build world class, high performing organizations.
Sejal is currently CHRO at Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN), a leading Solartech company providing residential solar. In 18 months, Sejal has helped Sunrun double its employee base to over 10K employees and drive 10X market capitalization growth. Sejal’s experience also includes building Visa’s Technology, Innovation and Venture Captial global capabilities.
Sejal earned an MBA/MPA from MIT Sloan/Harvard Kennedy and graduated with a BA/MIA from Columbia University. She has conducted research in molecular biology and virology that led to the discovery of a strain of the human papilloma virus (HPV-11SP) that bears her name. She enjoys adventures with her three young children and husband, holistic medicine and entrepreneurship
Shalini Govil-Pai is currently GM/Head of Android TV.. Under her leadership, Android TV has seen double digit growth around the globe with strong partnerships across PayTV operators (DirecTV, Bouygues, Airtel etc), SmartTVs (Sony, Toshiba, TCL), and content partners including Netflix and Amazon Prime. Previously Shalini served as Sr. Director at YouTube, has led product for Adwords and GoogleTV and was awarded the prestigious Google OC Award. Prior to Google, Shalini was Technical Director at Pixar Animation, where she led efforts for the first entirely CG animated block-buster ‘Toy Story’ and ‘A Bug’s Life’ and ‘Toy Story’.
Shalini is a well known thought leader and speaker and is the author of two internationally-published books in Computer Graphics – Principles of Computer Graphics and Learning Computer Graphics. Shalini has a BS and MS in Computer Science, and was conferred Distinguished Alumni from her alma mater, IIT.
Shankari Panchapakesan is a Product Leader at Adobe, digital experience and media giant that helps build stronger customer relationships and new revenue streams. Previously, Shankari has held senior roles where she drove the Product Management agenda including the design and development of leading-edge Enterprise, SaaS solutions. She has contributed to three patents and is excited about new technologies and innovative solutions that can significantly impact productivity and creativity.
Outside of work, Shankari is passionate about supporting women’s causes. She is committed to working with non-profits who aim to bridge the gap for disadvantaged or minority communities. At Neythri Shankari looks forward to bringing to bear her energy and drive to grow the platform to support South Asian professional women across the country and the globe. Through Neythri’s community, she hopes to pave the path to a future where the term “gender gap” is a thing of the past.
Shefali Raina is the Founder of Alpha Lane Partners and is an accomplished Financial Services Executive, Leadership Coach, Strategic Advisor, and Investor.
As an Executive Coach (PCC), she partners with C-Suite executives, Board Members, Top Leaders and Founders across financial services, technology and other industries on leadership success, strategic impact and peak performance.
Prior to Coaching, Shefali spent 20 years in the Financial Services Industry. Most recently, she was Managing Director and business unit COO at Lehman Brothers Holdings until 2017. Earlier in her career, she advised Fortune 500 companies on strategy and M&A deals at the Corporate Finance practice at Deloitte and Business Advisory Practice at Andersen.
Shefali is also a Principal at Clear Water Capital Investments and a Limited Partner with the How Women Invest Fund.
She is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council and has been quoted in many publications including Institutional Investor, Business Insider, Fast Company and Entrepreneur.
After spending the early part of her career in global roles in New Delhi, Manila and Tokyo, Shefali moved to the US in 2008 and now lives in Montclair, NJ with her husband Sam, and her rescue boxer dog, Ben.
Shivani Govil is EVP of Emerging Tech and Ecosystem at Sage Software, a leading fintech company with over 3M customers across the globe. Shivani’s expertise lies in identifying new areas of business growth, driven by the intersection of technology, business value and customer experience. In her current role, Shivani is responsible for emerging technology areas such as AI and Blockchain, as well as building out a robust ecosystem across developers and partners.
Shivani has an undergraduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai and a Master of Science from Princeton University. Prior to joining Sage, she was at SAP for several years where she lead teams spanning corporate strategy, mobile innovation, ecosystem, AI products and other topics.
Shivani is passionate about giving back to the community in areas such as education and entrepreneurship. She is on the board of the IITB Heritage fund and was previously on the Bay Area board of BUILD, a non-profit inspiring high-risk youth to graduate from school. She is a strong advocate of diversity and has been on the diversity councils both at SAP and at Sage.
Shobhana (Shobz) Ahluwalia is a global technology leader with a record of scaling & transforming corporate operations and company culture. As the Chief Information Officer at Uber, she is responsible for the IT strategy to fuel business growth. She was recognized as the 2019 CIO of the year.
A passionate advocate of diversity in technology and leadership, Shobhana is a founding member of the Bay Area Women CIO group. She also serves as the independent advisor for the University of San Francisco’s Board of Trustees Committee on Information Technology Strategy (CITS), and is a Board member for the Consortium of Information Systems Executives (CISE).
Shobhana holds an MBA with a double major in Strategy and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Computer Science in Engineering. She is a fitness enthusiast who enjoys hiking, and riding her Peloton bike.
Ms. Shekhar has been a senior analyst for the International Small Cap Equity Strategy since 2018. She provides sector research coverage across the Financial, Real Estate and Healthcare sectors and also contributes to the portfolio strategy. With more than 16 years of investment experience, Ms. Shekhar brings extensive research capabilities, spanning public and private equity across international and emerging markets. Ms. Shekhar is fluent in four languages.
Prior to joining Winslow, Ms. Shekhar was a portfolio manager at NN Investment Partners and an investment analyst at Fidelity Worldwide Investments in Mumbai and Singapore. Ms. Shekhar also served as a global investments analyst at Integer Asset Management (IAM), out of Singapore.
M.B.A., With Distinction, Finance/Marketing, Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad
Chartered Accountant, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India
Bachelor of Commerce, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University
Sneha Devadason is a corporate lawyer practicing in NYC for over 25 years, focusing on private equity and mergers and acquisitions. She currently consults with business organizations and investment management firms, advising them on domestic and cross-border transactions, corporate governance, fundraising, ESG, regulatory compliance, and risk management. She advises senior management on strategic planning as well as governing boards and committees on their fiduciary duties to shareholders, limited partners, and other stakeholders.
Sneha was General Counsel at Tailwind Capital, a $3B U.S. private equity firm, and Head of Legal at Citi Venture Capital International, a Citi-sponsored $7B global PE fund. She started her career specializing in M&A at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and went on to practice at Friedman Kaplan. Sneha received her J.D. and LL.M. from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Madras.
Sohini is a strategic and commercial CFO with demonstrable track record of creating enterprise value in a capital efficient manner. Her success is powered by her relentless pursuit of operational excellence, uncompromising commitment to building high performance teams, and cutting-edge yet practical use of technology. Scaling processes, managing liquidity and building the finance function in different industries, are all hallmarks of her career.
During her tenure as the Chief Accounting Officer at Bridgewater, she scaled the finance department and related technology at a time of rapid AUM and headcount growth at Ray Dalio’s 160bn hedge fund. She was also a key member of the leadership team that designed and executed the recapitalization of the Management Company.
Sohini helped design and execute a global tax optimization strategy at Diageo (via a $2 billion intercompany debt placement) that significantly lowered the company’s effective tax rate as a consultant with Diageo North America.
Most recently she doubled enterprise value in three years for PE owned Nexseer Capital as a member of the four-person executive management team. During her tenure there, she institutionalized the accounting, finance, finance IT and valuation functions.
In addition to her commitment to help build the Neythri sisterhood, she sits on the Board of the Moonlight Foundation (founded to help with adoptions into LGBTQ families). She also sits on the Board of Silver Fern (a Med Tech firm that transforms care for people with chronic disease) and on the Editorial Board of the Monitor Journal (a leasing and ABL publication). Finally, she is a member of the Executive Forums, the International Women’s Forum (focused on advancing women’s leadership and championing equality worldwide).
As the VP of Operations Sonar spearheads strategy planning, business analytics and governance, and business transformation initiatives for VMware’s Products and Cloud Services organization. Her team drives strategic, operational, and organizational programs to deliver SaaS acceleration, scale the business with speed and deliver aggressive growth. Prior to her current role, Sonar spent almost 19 years at Cisco in various Engineering and Operations roles for multiple multi-billion dollar businesses including Data Center, IoT, and Networking. Sonar loves sharing personal stories, pushing herself and her team to question the status quo and find new ways to solve problems.
Sonar is passionate about mentoring and sponsoring Women in Tech. Sonar’s recent recognitions include SVBJ Woman of Influence in 2020, YWCA TWIN award in 2019, and a fellowship with the IWF leadership foundation in 2018-2019. Sonar holds a BS in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University.
Sree Menon is COO of discovery shopping marketplace, Tophatter.She previously ran eBay’s Motor divisions. Prior to eBay, Sree served as eCommerce and online director at Dell. Sree is an Angel investor and advisor to various startups in Silicon Valley and serves on the Board of Parivaar. She is an Inspirational leader who prioritizes people and culture, energizes, and creates direction with a sense of purpose for employees, and attracts, retains, and develops talent and teams.
Committed to furthering careers for women by understanding the barriers and micro-inequities that they face and serving as a passionate mentor to them.
She is a frequent keynote speaker and panelist at industry events, as well as in webinars and podcasts. Sree writes articles and blog posts regularly and is interviewed by the media on business topics.When not working, she enjoys spending time outdoors with her family, meditating, and working on her tennis.
Sunita L Ganapati is a seasoned banking executive with over 25 years of experience in large financial institutions. Most recently, she was an Executive Vice President at Wells Fargo Corporate Risk group and was a leader in facilitating independent governance of financial risks by Wells Fargo’s executive management and Board of Directors, and key regulators at the Federal Reserve and the OCC. She joined Wells Fargo in 2005 as a Managing Director in the bank’s investment portfolio group after a successful investment research career as a top Institutional Investor ranked analyst at Lehman Brothers’ prestigious Fixed Income group. She started her career at Bank of America in Corporate Lending. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees to a California public pension fund (San Jose), while advising two startups in the bay area. She is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Supriya Gujral is a senior marketing executive who has had the opportunity to spark partnerships for some of the world’s most iconic brands – Apple & Google with McLaren, Samsung, Nike, to name a few. Supriya leads Global Partner Marketing for all Platforms & Ecosystems at Google. As Senior Managing Director leading a cross-functional marketing team, Supriya has strategic overview of business lines and guides in implementing Google’s strategy with partners globally. Prior to joining Google, Supriya spent 11 years at Apple leading Worldwide Partner Marketing for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch & Apple TV. She joined Apple with the launch of the original iPhone and developed the roll-out strategy & business across 150 countries & 500+ partners by crafting go-to-market strategies & implementing marketing plans. Supriya also led marketing at FusionOne (Nokia) & developed her expertise over the past 25 years through a range of other experiences in brand, product marketing and advertising. She has an MBA in Marketing and attended UC Berkeley and Golden Gate University.
Even though her work takes her around the globe, in her spare time, Supriya also enjoys traveling with her camera & her 6 year old world traveler, immersing in human stories & cultures. Supriya is a celebrated global thought leader & Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging champion. For years, she has been actively working to #changetheratio in a heavily male dominated tech/mobile industry and has also been a founding board member for several global employee resource groups. She has received awards & recognition and is hailed as a passionate advocate of purpose led marketing and an empathetic & inspirational leader.
She loves to try new things, be it food, adventure sports, or travel. She has traveled to 22 countries and plans to visit 3 new ones every year. Suruchi’s other interests include hiking, yoga, reading, photography, and lately, she has been pursuing Feng Shui.
Sweta Sarnot is a versatile business leader with 20 years of experience in finance, strategy, and business operations for technology companies.
Most recently, Sweta led finance for Eightfold AI, where she helped scale revenue 4x, grow the team from 30 to 150 employees across multiple countries, and successfully raise $30M in Series C funding. Prior to Eightfold, Sweta was CFO at Khan Academy, where she was responsible for all financial and legal operations. Sweta joined Khan Academy from NetApp Inc., a Fortune 500 storage and data management company, where she held multiple finance leadership roles. She started her career as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s Silicon Valley office.
Sweta holds an MBA and an MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University and a B Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Delhi. She lives with her family in Los Altos.
Tanuja Bahal is a seasoned non-profit leader with more than two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, strategy, program management and marketing in corporate and non-profit environments. Currently working on strategic projects for Silicon Valley Creates and PeopleShores, she is passionate about community building. In her past role as Executive Director of the India Community Center, she was instrumental in growing the organization and leading it on a path to sustainability. Tanuja also serves on the board of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and CreaTV.
Uma Meyyappan is SVP, Head of Product Innovation at LPL Financial, nation’s largest independent broker-dealer providing advisor technology solutions where her focus is to create a culture of innovation, and accelerate business value with the use of emerging technology.
Prior to this, Uma was at Wells Fargo, where she spent the last 15 years leading product management, technology delivery, and Innovation R&D. She also headed the evaluation of startup companies for Wells Fargo Startup accelerator, which invests in startups for return on Innovation.
Uma’s extensive research in financial technologies such as digital payments, biometrics, augmented reality, and Internet of Things (IoT) has resulted in over 30 issued US patents to her name.
Uma is deeply passionate about entrepreneurship and serves in nonprofit boards focused on promoting entrepreneurship. As a strong advocate of women, she is involved in various forums in mentoring and coaching women at various points in life.
Urvashi is a global executive designing award-winning customer experiences for B2B and B2C segments at startups, mid-market, and Fortune 500 organizations. For more than 20 years, she has transformed customer service into a competitive advantage that unlocks global revenue and fosters brand loyalty. Urvashi is especially skilled in efficient international expansion and go-to-market and operational strategies for cloud-based SaaS software and hardware support. Urvashi is currently the Senior Vice President of Client Services at Intermedia – A cloud communications company. Previously Urvashi managed Global Customer Care for Western Digital & SanDisk managing worldwide support and warranty operations.
Urvashi is passionate about women’s empowerment & gender equality. She was the co-founder of Women’s Innovation Network at SanDisk. She focuses on bringing women’s leadership to the forefront and is also an active advocate of mentorship programs.
Urvashi earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business from the University of Mumbai and her MBA from the University of San Francisco’s Graduate School of Management. Urvashi also has a degree in photography. Her other interests include reading, nature and wildlife photography, travel, and spending time with her husband and daughter.
Usha combines an extensive background as a senior IT executive in Fortune 500 companies, a passion for entrepreneurship and dedication to social impact in all that she does. She’s currently Founder/CEO of Meemli, a nonprofit education technology company that works to improve equity in education by leveraging the ease of technology, the power of community and the expertise of educators to bring great learning experiences to all students.
In addition to her work with Meemli, Usha mentors women of all ages from teens to retirees, and is actively involved with dynamic nonprofits Enacte Arts, Sangam and Neythri, all of which promote inclusion and growth in areas ranging from performing arts to women’s career development. For downtime, Usha delves into books, movies, theater, the Warriors, and, her favorite, enjoying time with family and friends in the vibrant, beautiful Bay Area.
Usha is the Founder & President of Sangam Arts. She is a trained Bharatanatyam (Classical Indian) dancer and passionate about using the arts to strengthen community. She is a Kinght Foundation Creative Community Fellow (2016-17) and a member of Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute (MALI) Cohort (2015-16) in San Jose. She has served on the Board of World Arts West, the producer of the famous San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, on City of Santa Clara’s Cultural Commission and on the board of Wildlife Rescue, Palo Alto.
In addition to managing Sangam Arts, Usha leads Impact Strategy for Women in STEM (WiSTEM) – an initiative of MKF that helps empower girls and women in STEM fields. She also runs a consulting practice providing product strategy and marketing services to high tech companies in Silicon Valley. She holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
A global leader with 20+ years of experience in Technology. My industry focus has been diverse with focus in supply chain, freight forwarding, health-care diagnostics and logistics.
Currently VP of Solutions at CargoMatrix Inc for 15 years, my primary focus has been spearheading a profitable IT strategy, a global outsourcing infrastructure and diversifying customer base to achieve revenue growth of 40%. Continued enhancement of core products, developing a robust integration platform and transforming it to a new logistics platform, I helped transition from a start-up to a scale-up.
Raised in Kolkata, India, after my Bachelor of Engineering from Bangalore University, I joined Infosys Technologies for 6+ years, handling projects in Japan and USA. I was awarded an Outstanding Performer including the Zero-Defect delivery honor.
I live in New York, and love spending time with my family. In my spare time, I enjoy legal/mystery thrillers, cooking, hiking, puzzles and home-renovation projects.
Vinita is the CEO, Artistic Director and Founder of EnActe Arts. She comes to the world of theatre and non-profit with 20+years of experience in the corporate world. She holds a degree in Computer Science from BITS Pilani and an MBA from HEC, France and a Diploma in French Language and Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris.
Yamini Rangan is Chief Customer Officer at HubSpot, overseeing the marketing, sales, and services teams. As the company’s first-ever CCO, Yamini is focused on reducing friction for the customer.
A tech industry veteran, Yamini has more than 24 years of experience ranging from product marketing, sales, and strategy. Yamini previously served as Chief Customer Officer at Dropbox, where she was responsible for embedding customer focus across the organization. Before Dropbox, she was VP of Sales Strategy and Operations at Workday, where she helped quadruple revenue and scaled the sales organization. At SAP, Yamini held several customer-facing leadership roles in strategy, pre-sales and value-based selling and helped close landmark deals.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering, a Master’s in Computer Engineering, and an MBA from Berkeley. In 2019, Yamini was recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Business by San Francisco Business Times.