Pavithra YS

Managing Director

Vindhya a socio-economic venture started by her is the India’s first & only and arguably world’s first & only for profit organization which employs only people with disabilities (PWD’s) as 100% of its production staff. Its production staff comprises only of physically challenged Hearing Impaired & Border cases of Spastic.

Starting as a first generation entrepreneur she has been able to grow the company from 5 PWD’s to close to 150 PWD’s and are currently in the process of increasing by another 500 PWD’s to serve a new customer.
Her vision is to employ 5000 PWD’s by 2015. Vindhya serves customers who are one of the top 3 in their respective domains.
A plan to employ 500 of them in the current financial year has already been underway.

Work of Pavithra through Vindhya has been highly appreciated by all channels of Media all through the India and also been the recipient of “Shell-Helen Keller Award” from National Center for Promotion of employment opportunity for disabled people, a Govt. of India body, and “Outstanding Customer” from then Honorable Finance Minister Mr. P Chidambaram on Behalf of Canara Bank one of the largest national banks in India. She is also the recipient of “TATA-TiE Stree Shakthi Award 2009” for outstanding contribution towards woman entrepreneurship. She is also the recipient of “Young Achiever Award 2010” from Brigade Group & Rotary.

She is a commerce graduate from Bangalore University and was pursuing her Chartered Accountancy at the time of founding Vindhya.

Ashok Giri D

CEO & Director

Vindhya a socio-economic venture started by him is the India’s first & only and arguably world’s first & only for profit organization which employs only people with disabilities (PWD’s) as 100% of its production staff

Ashok has been inducted into world economic forum’s “Young Global Leader” community for the year 2009-2010. As the Young Global Leader from India, he will be involved in development programs across the world including leadership program at the Harvard University.

He has been on the regular guest lecture list of various management institutions in India for promoting the social-economic ventures and has been advising various large organization on inclusion of PWD’s on a larger scale for providing better dignity of life through equal employment opportunity.

Prior to starting Vindhya, Ashok was in senior positions (Director) at R2K Inc, and Network Solutions (an IBM company) & Trivium Inc (an Intel funded company) responsible for their operations in Asia region. He has demonstrated result oriented leadership capabilities taking the organizations to the next level.

Having over 12+ years of experience in leading organizations at various leadership roles, he is a science graduate from Bangalore University and computer diploma engineering holder from National Institute of Information Technology.

Shantanu Bhagwat

  Nominee Director

Shantanu Bhagwat is a Principal Director with the ACCION Frontier Investments Group and divides his time between UK and India.

In a career spanning more than two decades, Shantanu has worked across geographies and industries, including several years in Japan and in the UK. Until recently a Partner at venture capital firm in London, he has also worked at Monitor Co. in London. Prior to that, he spent several years as a fast-track career diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service, working in New Delhi and Tokyo. He is a personal investor in (and an advisor to) several start-ups in India including Myntra - a personalized gift company, Innoviti - a cutting-edge start-up in transaction processing and Elements Akademia - an innovative national chain of vocational schools.

A graduate in Computer Engineering, Shantanu holds an MBA from London Business School where he was a Chevening Scholar.

He is a Charter Member of TiE - a global non-profit network of entrepreneurs and professionals and a past member of Mensa International. He is also a frequent speaker and panellist at conferences on Venture Capital, Innovation, Asia and India.

Geeta Goel

Nominee Director

Geeta Goel manages the family economic stability program of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The key initiatives under this program include enabling microfinance start-ups in urban India, community development and social performance. The program includes a portfolio of over 15 microfinance (and related) institutions. Prior to joining the Foundation, Geeta spent over 12 years with the Corporate Finance Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers in India, advising large Indian and multi-national clients on joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions, business plans and valuations. She is an alumni of IIM (Ahmedabad) and Lady Shri Ram College (Delhi).

Balasubramanya N L

Independent Director

• Highly regarded veteran in the business process outsourcing industry
• Served as head of “Wividus” , Shared Services Division of Wipro Ltd. Was involved with Wividus right from the setting up of the division. It services the various business units within Wipro namely, Wipro technologies, Wipro Info-tech, Wipro Corporate, and Wipro BPO.
• He also served as the Chief Information Officer for Wipro Info-tech
• Qualified Black belt in Six Sigma process

Worked as Manager of R&D and Engineering at Bells controls and as Design engineer at Keltron

T K Shekha

Independent Director

An early stage investor with vast experience in the finance sector. Shekha brings in experience in the handling of financial operations to the company.