EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Mr. Suresh Raman

Southern India Chapter Chairperson and Vice President IACC

Suresh Raman is the Vice President and Region Head for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Chennai. He manages TCS’ largest delivery centre, with over 90,000 associates. His focus areas are to provide right experience for customers and associates leveraging state-of-the-art digital technologies; facilitate talent management; nurture innovation, promoting diversity and associate well-being; provide agile and sustainable infrastructure; cost optimization; besides working closely with stakeholders across Government, Industry Associations and Communities.

An alumnus of Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) - Pilani, Suresh has over 3 decades of experience in Management Consulting Services and Information Technology Industry.

During this period, he has held diverse leadership roles across Sales, Delivery, Operations and Client relationships across multiple geographies as well as leading key strategic opportunities.

Having earlier spent a decade as a Management Consultant within TCS as well as briefly with PriceWaterhouse, he had played an advisory role to MNCs as well as to Governments

He holds / has held key honorary positions and is an active member in industry bodies :

• Board Member, Vice President (Southern Region) and Member of the Executive Committee of the Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce
• Chairman of CONNECT (2019 / 2020), a premier ICT event of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), hosted by Government of Tamil Nadu and co-hosted by STPI, Government of India
• President of the Madras Management Association (MMA)
• Member of the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission Working Group on Industrial Policy.
• Member of the Tamil Nadu State Advisory Council to develop a Federal Fiscal Model.
• CII Special Invitee to the Tamil Nadu State Council & General Committee member of Madras Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI)
• Chair of Chennai Chapter of TATA Network Forum

Mr. S V Venkataraman

Bengaluru Chapter Chairperson and Vice President IACC

Venkataraman SV (Venky) is the Managing Director for Bengaluru Service Centre in ANZ Banking Group. In his current role, apart from leading the Service Centre operations, Venky has been very closely involved in ANZ Banking group’s successful foray into Automation starting with RPA over 5 years ago.

Further to the large scale implementation of human-action mimicking automation solutions, Venky has driven the use of emergent technologies including AI / ML and OCR to automate human judgment oriented processes in complex products of Trade Finance and Home Lending.

He is a long-time banker and prior to this role he was the COO-Institutional Operations, Service Centres in ANZ. In this role he managed the Operations for Institutional banking division for ANZ across 30 plus countries being delivered through the Service Centres in Bangalore, Manila and Chengdu. Earlier, he was the Chief Operating Officer for ANZ Banking Group, Mumbai where he helped set ANZ Banking group presence in India and his responsibilities included building and running the enablement functions of Operations, Technology, Legal, Marketing and Communications for the bank.

Venky has also held leadership positions in various organizations including COO at Aditya Birla Minacs and as Vice President, Banking and Financial Services, Perot Systems (now part of NTT date). He started his banking career with ANZ Grindlays Bank holding various front office positions in the Global Markets function.

Venky is passionate about diversity and has played a significant role in bringing this culture to the workplace.

He is a B.Tech. (Hons) graduate from IIT Kharagpur and a Post-Graduate in Management from IIM Ahmedabad.

Mr. Abhishek Poddar

Western India Chapter Chairperson and Vice President IACC

Abhishek is India Country Head, Macquarie Group and Managing Director at Macquarie Asset Management (MAM), based in Mumbai. In this role, Abhishek is responsible for sourcing of investment, executing transactions, asset management and external stakeholder relationship management across renewables, energy transition, infrastructure, and private equity funds.

Abhishek joined Macquarie in 2018 and has been leading the asset management and exit initiatives across various MAM funds invested in India. He has also been driving new investment opportunity in the Energy Transition domain across India and Southeast Asia.

Prior to joining Macquarie, Abhishek spent more than 18 years in management consulting industry in India and Asia-Pacific region, wherein he advised large companies on a range of topics across corporate strategy, value maximisation, digital transformation and organisation set up. In his last role as a Senior Partner at A.T. Kearney, he led the Energy and Process industry practice for the firm in India.

Abhishek has authored several articles and publications and is a frequent speaker at various industry forums and conferences. He has been closely involved with various economic and industry policy matters as Chairman of India Australia Chamber of Commerce (Western Chapter) and a member of the CII National Committee on Power, Renewables and Infrastructure.

Abhishek has a Master of Business Administration from IIM, Ahmedabad, and has studied B.Sc. (Hons) in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi.

Mr. Gaven Standon

President

Gaven is an accomplished business leader with a professional journey spanning over 28 years. Gaven has demonstrated his ability to drive business success and develop enterprise-wide strategies. Throughout his career, Gaven has excelled in various areas including operations, sales, analytics, supply chain, sourcing, and particularly in the IT and ITES sectors. Gaven's experience extends to global operations, with a focus on Asia Pacific and the US. As an Executive with Telstra India, Gaven leads Telstra GBS's Partner Ecosystem, overseeing the development of partner delivery and driving Telstra's business transformation towards becoming a digital, agile, and innovative technology-led solutions company

During his tenure as the Director for Asia & Pacific Sales Operations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Gaven managed pre-sales for a significant revenue-generating region. As the Director of Global Business Services, he established a global domain-centric practice in sales operations, centred in Bangalore, India, with market-facing contra revenue infrastructure capabilities. Gaven's strategic leadership skills were honed during his time as the global strategy leader for Hewlett Packard, where he established the global shoring and sourcing strategy for the consumer sector, based in Houston, Texas. Additionally, he played instrumental roles in developing IT infrastructure support services at General Electric Capital International Services and establishing greenfield canning and bottling operations at Coca-Cola International in Pune, Maharashtra.

Gaven's educational background includes a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management (MBA) from IMT, Ghaziabad, and a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore University. He is also a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt from General Electric and has undergone accelerated executive leadership programs at NUS - the National University of Singapore and New York University Stern School of Business.

Mr. Sanjeev Nandwani

East India Chapter Chairperson and Vice President IACC

Sanjeev Nandwani is a former Civil Servant, and in a career spanning three decades as a member of the Indian Trade Service (1986 batch), he has worked inter alia, as Executive Director, CAPEXIL, Additional DGFT and Zonal Development Commissioner, SEZ’s for East and North-East India, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana under the Union Commerce Ministry.

He took an early separation from the Government in 2016 after thirty years of service, and thereafter had a stint of three years as President of a Steel and Mining Company based out of Mumbai and Odisha.

He then moved on to join Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), under the Ministry of Textiles, as their Secretary General where he served till October, 2020

He was a ‘Chevening Gurukul Scholar’ at the London School of Economics and a ‘Mason Fellow’ at the Harvard Kennedy School where he did his Master’s in “Public Policy and Management”.

His strengths lie in people and process management and he also has a keen interest in teaching, as a regular visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and occasionally at the Indian Institute of Management and IIT’s.

He is currently a ’Strategic Advisor’ to multiple businesses, and focuses primarily on International Trade, as an Advisor at East India Trade Advisors (EITA), a boutique Consulting firm (https://www.eita.co.in).

Dr. Margaret Faux

Chair of IACC’s Governance and Ethics Committee

Dr Margaret Faux is a health system lawyer, senior executive, businesswoman, and academic with deep experience and knowledge of health regulation both in Australia and internationally. She has over four decades of experience in the health sector, having commenced her career with over a decade practising as a registered nurse. Margaret has a PhD on the legal and administrative operation of Australia’s blended public/private health system Medicare and is also the founder and CEO of Synapse Medical, a leading global MedTech company offering digital health financing solutions and consulting.

Margaret has published widely and is a regular contributor to the Australian health reform debate and is considered one of Australia’s leading experts on the operation of the Australian health system. Her research interests are in the areas of health system codes and classifications, regulation, and digital enablement.

Margaret is also passionate about education and technology and drives innovation in her business using disruptive technologies such as by building Australia’s first medical billing app with Australia’s only medical billing rules engine. Synapse’s training academy, the Australian Institute of Medical Administration and Compliance offers short, online courses on everything from cybersecurity through to the difference between generic and branded medications

Mr. Jonah Stephen

Director of the Board cum Treasurer (interim period)

An entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in the software and knowledge industry in India, the UK, the USA and Indonesia. He worked at Microsoft in strategic roles as Chief Compete Officer, Director Developer and Platform Group & Architect Advisor for Global System Integrators. Prior to joining Microsoft, he served as Assistant Vice President in Polaris Financials Technology Ltd. And Technology Director in Kumaran Systems Inc

Before starting to build out Carisma Solutions and Purple Quay Global, he was the Co-founder and Vice President of big data start-up Indix Corporation.

He holds a master’s in physics from St Josephs' College and EGIMP from IIM-B.

He served as Executive Vice President of the Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce and is now a member of Board of the same.

He is the custodian of the culture and values of the organization. His leadership has enabled the business to grow successfully and responsibly from being a start-up to a leading business in the industry today. He is always committed to shaping the success of people & businesses.

He is also the founder of RADA (Raise & Develop Association) in his organization, that encourages women to explore their potential at work whilst having a good work-life balance. Since its inception, RADA has been focusing on promoting gender diversity and equality as its business priority