Geet Sethi Director
Geet Sethi – Director
9 time world Champion (Cue Sports)
In a remarkable career spanning 30 years and counting, billiards maestro Geet Sethi has become synonymous with the three-ball game in India. Born in Delhi on April 17th 1961, Sethi’s precocious talent blossomed when he shifted to Ahmedabad at a young age. Geet Sethi startled billiards aficionados when he defeated the mercurial Michael Ferreira to win the National senior title in 1982. He went on to win an amazing nine world titles – five World Professional, three IBSF World Billiards Championships and one IBSF World Team Snooker Championship. He featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first amateur in the world to compile the maximum 147 break in Snooker.
In a tribute to his achievements, the nation has conferred on him some of its most prestigious awards – Padma Shri (1986), Arjuna Award (1986) and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award (1992-93). He is also author of Success vs. Joy, an Inspirational book on Mind Control.
Prakash Padukone Director
Prakash Padukone – Director
Former All England Champion & World No.1
Known as the ‘Gentle Tiger’ on court, Prakash Padukone, is the first Indian to reach the top of the World Badminton honours by winning the All England Championship in 1980. Born on June 10th 1956 he won his first National Men’s singles at the Indian Nationals when he was only 15 years old (he also won the Juniors title at that Nationals). He won the Nationals 9 years in a row from 1971 till 1979 and did not play at the nationals again till 1989. At the Commonwealth games in 1978, he was the gold medalist. 1980 was his best year, in the months leading up to the All-England, he dominated the top European players, consistently beating Fleming Delfs, Morten Frost Hansen and Svend Pri (all All-England champions themselves), and won the Danish Open and the Swedish Open. Seeded third at the All-England, he beat Morten Frost in the semifinals and Liem Swie King in the finals in straight games
Neeraj Bharadwaj Director
Neeraj Bharadwaj – Director
Managing Director, The Carlyle Group
Neeraj Bharadwaj is a Managing Director advising on large growth capital and buyout opportunities across sectors in India. He is based in Mumbai. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Bharadwaj was a Managing Director with Accel Partners’ growth investing operation in India. Preceding that he was with Apax Partners for nearly 10 years – initially as a Partner in the U.S. and subsequently as Managing Director/Country Head for Apax in India, where he led the India operations. Previously, Mr. Bharadwaj was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Co.Mr. Bharadwaj was selected as Board Member of the Indian School of Business (ISB), a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Chairperson of the India Regional Agenda Council of the WEF (2009-2011), Founding Curator of WEF’s Global Shaper Community and Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). Mr. Bharadwaj holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School, and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Viswanathan Anand Director
Viswanathan Anand – Director
Grandmaster & 5 time World Chess Champion
Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand is quite simply one of the greatest sportsmen India has ever produced. He has been almost single handedly responsible for the widespread popularity of Chess in India and his legendary battles with Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov captivated chess fans all over the world in the late 90s. Born on 11th December 1969, Anand, also known as ‘Vishy’, learnt chess at the tender age of 6. Anand became the undisputed World Champion in 2007. He defended his title against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in 2008. With this win, he became the first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: Knockout, Tournament, and Match. In April 2007 at the age of 37, he became the world number-one for the first time. In 2007, Anand was awarded India’s second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, making him the first sportsperson to receive the award in Indian history. He was also the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991-92, India’s highest sporting honour.
Dipak Basu Director
Dipak Basu - Director
Founder & CEO, Vispala Technologies
Dipak is the CEO of Anudip Foundation,a non forprofit company dedicated to improving livelihoods of rural poor in developing countries through training in information technology and entrepreneurship.He also serves as Executive Director at Jhumki Basu Foundation. He has previously worked with Cisco Systems and co-founded NetHope with strong support from Cisco. Prior to Cisco, Dipak served as a consultant to the Government of India. During thattime, he set up INDONET, India’s first public data network, and voice/data networks for India’s steel, energy, banking and hospitality sectors. He also started a networking and software consulting company, Informatica in Inc. in 1989.
Dipak is a recipient of IIT Kharagpur Distinguished Alumnus Award, NASSCOM Social Innovation Award and has been honoured as Tech Laureate by San Jose Museum of Technology. Dipak holds a BTech degree in Electronics and Communication from IIT Kharagpur and an MS degree from University of South Carolina.
Neeraj Arora Director
Neeraj Arora - Director
Co-Founder, HalloApp
Neeraj is the Co-Founder of HalloApp. Neeraj was previously with Whatsapp as Chief Business Officer. He also serves on the Board of Directors at Paytm, India. Neeraj has previously worked with Google as Principal, Corporate Development where he led acquisitions and strategic investments across products and geographies.
Neeraj holds a B-Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and MBA degree from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.
Recently Neeraj has started a perpetual merit-cum-need based scholarship for a deserving woman student of ISB’s flagship Post Graduate Programmed in Management.
Ram Parameswaran Director
Ram Parameswaran - Director
Founder, Octahedron Capital
Ram is the founder of Octahedron Capital, a global, crossover fund that invests in the leading companies that drive the world's internet economy. Previously, Ram was a partner at Altimeter Capital which manages a long/short public equity fund and private growth equity funds. Ram is also on the Board of Observer at Practo.
Ram holds an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and an MBA degree from Chicago Booth School of Business.
Anu Hariharan Director
Anu Hariharan - Director
Founder, Avra
Anu is the Founder of Avra. Previously, she was a Partner at Y Combinator's Continuity Fund focused on growth stage investments and worked actively with the management teams on a number of portfolio companies including Airbnb, Instacart, Medium, OfferUp and Udacity.
Prior to Andreessen Horowitz, she was a Principal at The Boston Consulting Group's Private Equity practice in NYC where she led multiple growth equity due diligences in the consumer and fin-tech sector. She started her career as a senior engineer at Qualcomm and holds an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Rahul Mehta Director
Rahul Mehta - Director
Managing Partner, DST Global
Rahul Mehta is the managing partner at DST Global (Digital Sky Technologies), a growth focused investment company specializing in late-stage, high-growth, private companies in the global Internet industry.
Rahul had previously worked as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs and was closely involved on the Mail.Ru IPO. He is a qualified chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.
Vivek Sharma Director
Vivek Sharma - Director
CEO - Saama Technologies
Vivek Sharma is CEO of Saama Technologies, US based leading global technology providing AI enabled SaaS solutions to Life Sciences companies. Vivek is also on the board of Apollo Intelligence a Boston based global Life Sciences insight company and Corro Health a US based leading healthcare technology company.
Prior to joining Saama, Vivek served as CEO at Decision Resources Group (DRG), Piramal Pharma Solutions, and Piramal Critical Care, as well as Managing Director at PE firm THL Partners. Vivek is a Chartered Accountant, CPA and has MBA from Thunderbird. Vivek and his wife are actively involved in philanthropy through their foundation in Boston where he currently resides.
Viren Rasquinha Director and CEO
Viren Rasquinha
Director and CEO
Joining Date: 01 June 2009
Education: MBA, Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, Class of 2009
Experience in Sport Sector: 23 Years. Also served as Captain of Indian Hockey Team
Role in OGQ: Viren looking after the training requirements of the top 6-8 athletes and para-athletes, sustained fundraising for OGQ, managing relationships with all key stakeholders including donors, building the OGQ brand.
Favourite Athlete: Rahael Nadal