Narayanan Ayipuzha (Mentor & Partner)
Narayanan comes with experience of more than 35 years in a wide variety of assignments in the corporate and academic worlds, as a management consultant and educator. More recently, he was Global Head of Business Excellence at TCS. He is currently a visiting faculty at SPM, PDPU.
He holds a Master’s Degree in Business Management and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He was also a certified external assessor for the Tata Group using the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) based on the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria (MBNQA). Narayanan has an excellent track record of consulting interventions, training excellence, and organizational excellence assessment.
After a 10 year stint with Voltas Limited, where he managed the regional commercial operations of the Air conditioning business, he taught and consulted on Growth Strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises and Family Business at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad, for 3 years. From 1998 to 2016, he was with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global player in the IT-enabled Services industry. At TCS, he has played the roles of management consultant, business analyst, and program manager for domestic and international engagements.
He has been involved in the Business Excellence movement in the Tata Group since 2006, as an assessor, team leader, and group evangelist. As a certified TBEM Assessor, he has participated in 10 External Assessments, the last 5 as Team Leader. The team led by him was awarded the Best Assessment Team Prize 2011. During 2012 and 2013, he was recognized as one of the top 10 “Star Assessors” within the Tata Group. The group recognized him for his long-standing contributions to its Business Excellence journey in 2015.
During his association with TCS, Narayanan conducted a number of internal training programs focusing on Business Excellence, Performance Management, Leadership, Cross-Cultural Management, Workplace Communication, and Project Management. He was part of the internal trainer’s team to prepare associates of TCS to appear for the PMI examinations. He has also served as faculty for Nirma Insttitute of Management, Ahmedabad, taking courses on Management Consulting, and has served on the jury for thesis evaluation. He has also offered a course in EDII on Small Business Consulting.
Currently, he is a Mentor at Synconic, a start-up with a core team of professionals engaged in Wealth Management Advisory, and Organic Farming Advisory Services. At SSIAS, he plays an advisory role, guiding the young professionals on strategic directions and growth.
He is a guest faculty at the School of Petroleum Management, Gandhinagar, where he takes courses in Business Communications and Business Consulting.
Sridhar Acharya (Advisor)
Shridhar Acharya has over 30 years’ experience, and held roles as Finance Manager, Controller and CFO during his career in leading companies in Automobiles, Pharma, Bulk
Drugs, Agrochemicals, Financial Services, IT, ITES, Analytics, BPM, and CRM.
M.Com., Bombay University, CMA (Institute of Cost Accountants of India)
Skills:
● Oracle e-business suite (Financials, Supply Chain & CRM), conversant with SAP.
● Excellent communication, Analytical & Logical thinking, problem-solving.
● Team management, project management, mentoring.
Has trained over 1000 professionals and project team members on Oracle e-business Applications in Financials, Supply Chain and CRM in Oracle University and project teams in Infosys, WIPRO, TCS, GE, Motorola, Canon, Airtel and L&T.
Shridhar has been part of the founding team of 3-startup companies in the F&A space, a board member of a BI company, and raised finance for this company. He is well connected with the VC and CXO community in Bangalore and Mumbai.
As a domain expert helped develop BI solutions for Banking, Insurance, and MFs, Telecom, Healthcare, IT services, and the Retail industry.
Set up 3 BPO’s and managed large teams in the F&A space for multinational companies. As CFO was a member of the M&A team while in Hinduja Global Solutions (MENA).
Worked in different geographies – UAE, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Sri Lanka & U.S.A.
Hobbies & Leisure Activities:
Golf, Travel, Investment Analysis, Reading, Social work, Teaching & Volunteer work.
Akhilesh Pathak (Ideator & Partner)
Akhilesh Pathak has been investing in the markets for the past 15 years and has deep insights into businesses and growth.
He is a strategic thinker, analytics, and cloud specialist with an excellent track record in the fields of Digital Transformation / Sales / Business Development / Large Enterprise Account Management in Enterprise Sales.
Akhilesh has 18+ years of experience in a wide variety of assignments in Manufacturing, Govt. & Large Enterprises working with TEGA, GSPC Group, TCS & ORACLE in senior sales roles. Until recently he was Key Accounts Director with TERADATA (San Diego-based Data & Analytics Leader). Mechanical Engineering – NIT Durgapur, MDP- IIM Ahmedabad.
Ankit Kanodia (Investment Adviser & Partner)
Ankit is an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar (XIMB) with 10 years of experience in researching and investing in the stock market of India. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. 
He is also a visiting faculty of finance at Tolani Institute of Management Studies in Kutch for the last 6 years. In the past, he has worked as an equity research analyst for Eureka Stock & Share Broking Services Ltd, a leading stock broking house based out of Kolkata. Some of his high-quality research has been recognized and published by Morningstar India. His research in the Indian stock market has earned him several accolades, the most notable one is being the winner for all the three online equity research completions organized by the most famous investment blog in India, Safal Niveshak.
He believes and follows in his life what is said in this famous quote of Warren Buffett,
I am a better investor because I am a businessman, and I am a better businessman because I am an investor.
He has been successfully owning a timber business in Gandhidham, Kutch district of Gujarat, for more than 10 years now. His experience in his timber business complements him in his investment decisions and vice versa.
Anshul Khare (Chief Technology Advisor)
Anshul is a techie, thinker, and writer with a keen interest in investing and writing. Since early 2015, Anshul has been blogging for Safal Niveshak — one of the most popular value-investing blogs in India.
Apart from a few hundred thousand lines of code in last 15 years, he has also written more than 250 articles on the subjects of business, investing, multidisciplinary learning, decision making, and psychology. A selection of these articles was published in a book —Mental Models, Investing, and You.
Anshul is B.Tech. from IIT Bombay, with more than 15 years of experience in software development and digital transformation areas. He has worked with American Online, Symantec, and Paytm in the past.
Karan Patel (Research Analyst)
Karan Patel is a Master of Finance graduate from Cambridge University. He also holds a BE in Information Technology from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is currently working as a Research Analyst for the Investment Research division of Smart Sync Services.
Karan has worked as a Sovereign Bond Futures Trader for more than 2 years where he learned and employed all the nuances and techniques of fundamental and technical research used in the field. In addition to this, he has studied various topics like Derivatives, Asian Capital Markets, Equity Research, Private Equity, Investment Management, etc as part of his coursework which has helped solidify his investment knowledge base and use it effectively in our investment research efforts. He has also been an active follower of international stock markets including US, UK, German and Indian markets since his trading days.
Karan is also a CFA Level 2 candidate.