YOURNEST - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Analyst - Deal Cultivation and Investments
Job Titles:
- Associate - Investment Management
Job Titles:
- Executive - Investor Relations
Shalini's experience of over 20 years in Organizational Development and Human Resources, spans varied industries. The founder of Infinity Organization Development, a boutique OD consulting firm that specializes in building organisations and leaders, she now jointly works with YourNest. Shalini has studied the early entrepreneurial journeys of many of today's startups and is an asset in her capacity as a mentor.
Prior to being the global head of Talent and Development for Deutsche Bank's near and offshore centres, Shalini was the CHRO of Escorts Agri-Machinery. She has the distinction of having presented papers at leading international and Indian management fora. Her publications include "In search of Change: planned and emergent" and "The Change Room".
In any call with Dr Vivek Mansingh, one will hear the sound of an Indian Air Force jet flying low overhead his home-office in Bengaluru. His voice will be drowned out momentarily, but he will be back in action unfazed as he exhorts founders to scale up and serve global markets at speed. Piercing in his analyses and candid in his advice, he is a sought-after investor and mentor to a number of startups.
Having worked alongside Steve Jobs, John Chambers and Michael Dell, Vivek's focus has been the pursuit of excellence in building IPs and developing global go-to-market strategies. He also six US patents, and has led international teams at CXO-level roles in Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu and HP in USA and India.
As a startup founder, he built Avid ATTI (USA) which had a successful acquisition and LBO, Portal Software, and Ishoni Networks, acquired by Oracle and Philips respectively. With over 30 years' experience, Vivek is currently on the board of Velocity Global (USA) and Innovatia (Canada).
In 2023 Penguin published his book ‘Achieving Meaningful Success: Unleash the Power of Me!' which became a national bestseller. He has also published hundreds of articles and technical papers, and contributed to two technology books. His honours include the National Who's Who for the United States, Public Relations Council of India's Chanakya Leadership Award and IT Man of the Year, India 2016 award by Global Enterprise Connect (USA).
Vivek is an alumnus of Stanford University (Executive Business Management Program); Queen's University, Canada (Ph.D. Engineering Design); and National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, (BE - Awarded Gold Medal).
Job Titles:
- Executive Director
- Fund Manager
- Partner
The Power of Ordinary is what best describes Ketan. From being a kid who was ordinary by birth, he was found clapping for others when they performed or won accolades. From there to today, he is now a published author, coach, speaker and a Human Resources practitioner who loves building businesses.
Ketan enjoys enabling business leaders in their journey to build organisations. After completing his Post Graduation from MDI Gurgaon, he started his career with Aditya Birla Group in 2006. He was assigned the Retail business that was at its concept stage. The company grew massively and within years of operations, it was already a 12,000+ people organisation spread across India. Post this assignment, he took on the challenge to build the people's practice at Utsav Fashion, one of the first Indian ethnic fashion ecommerce brands in India. Having played his part in scaling Utsav, Ketan took up an assignment with IDFC First Bank where he led the HR function for the Rural Banking, Commercial Banking and Retail Asset businesses. IDFC was again a story of working closely with the business in building an organisation that grew from few people, few branches and few crore of book value to a notable player in the ecosystem with more than5000 people in a few years of its operations. Right now, Ketan takes care of the People and Governance Function for a young startup - Rentomojo, the market leader in the rental ecosystem.
He loves technology and is bullish about the future of HR Tech. He believes that the HR function of the future would be a lot like that of Product Management: you understand technology, understand business, and design products that work. This belief led to him getting on to the advisory board of a few HR Tech companies.
A petro head, Ketan believes that "Ordinary by birth is a chance; living ordinary is a choice".
Words are to Mohit what code is to a developer or numbers are to a mathematician.
Originally, a copywriter in advertising, he evolved into a strategy leader with cross-functional experience in digital and traditional businesses that include advertising, media and marketing. He has held P&L responsibilities of large, cross-location teams at CXO levels in Contract Advertising, The Times of India Group, NIIT, JWT (including Hungama Digital), Open Media Network and Newsweek.
Over a career spanning three decades, Mohit has acquired in-depth understanding of creating and monetising content with exposure in brand management, establishing new businesses and publishing (both, offline and online) and effecting digital transformation. He has been associated with YourNest as an independent Strategy & Marketing Consultant since 2017 before becoming a Venture Partner. Mohit is also co-founder of Myriad Partners, an India-based global network of brand & communication specialists.
An English (Hons.) graduate from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, with Executive Development Programs attended at ISB Hyderabad, IIM Ahmedabad and INSEAD Singapore, Mohit blends left- and right-brain thinking and has won multiple awards for advertising, marketing and other achievements.
A storyteller and traveller, Mohit looks forward to the day when he will eventually publish a book.
Job Titles:
- Manager - Deal Cultivation and Investments
Ranjeet Shetye is among the few people who grew up devouring science fiction and then made a career at the intersection of technology and the future. He has been associated with YourNest since 2016 as an investor, and he became a Venture Partner in early 2021 upon his return to India from Austin, Texas. Being a key part of seven startups that were acquired, and with five of them being valued in the US$150 mn - US$450 mn range, he has been an integral part of startup ecosystems in USA and India for many years now.
As a Computer Science Engineer from the University of Mumbai with a Master's Degree in the same field from the University of Southern California, Ranjeet has had a multi-disciplinary career across technology and leadership roles in DeepTech, including Security, Cloud, Crypto, Networking and allied domains. Startups in which he held pivotal roles were later acquired by companies such as Alcatel, Cisco and Marvell.
Currently the Managing Director (India) of Everstream Analytics, Ranjeet's experiences span a diverse set of firms in several domains: Everstream, Resilinc, CALY Networks, PicoMobile (acquired by Marvell) and Airespace (acquired by Cisco). His roles in these companies began with technology but evolved into working closely on startup buyouts, meeting post-acquisition milestones, and customer management - in enterprise sales, recovery and resolving crises. Consequently, he takes pride in being "Marinated in a pro-consumer culture" and is now deeply immersed in studying the impact and potential of Artificial Intelligence, especially as applied to the India stack.
Job Titles:
- Manager - Investor Relations
Job Titles:
- Manager - Effectiveness and Efficiency
Job Titles:
- Director
- Fund Manager
- Partner
Job Titles:
- Associate Principal - Investment Management
Job Titles:
- Fund Manager
- Managing Director
- Partner
Job Titles:
- Associate - Investment Management
With two successful exits in Silicon Valley and another out of Bangalore, Venkat is the quintessential Serial Entrepreneur. However, had he not pivoted midway in his life, he would have remained a Corporate Executive leading large global organizations.
Extremely active in the startup/innovation eco-system in India and the US, some of Venkat's engagements include Venture Partner, EntrepreneurFirst; Chief Mentor, T-Hub; Mentor-In-Residence, Innovationqore (Turbostart); Advisor, Shell E4 Accelerator Program; Advisor to GE Edison [X] HealthCare Program; Mentor, Netapp Excellerator; Mentor, HPE Startup Challenge Program and Advisor, Flipkart's LEAP Accelerator program.
He is also an active Angel Investor and a Mentor & Advisor (or Director) with several startups in AI, Blockchain, AR/VR, IoT, SaaS, Big Data & Analytics, FinTech, HealthTech, EdTech, Cyber & Data Security, EV & Mobility, DeepTech across several verticals including Financial Services, Retail, Logistics, Healthcare, Telecom, Energy and Transportation.
Most recently, he served as the CEO of Kyron Global, India's largest Corporate (Open) Innovation Platform Services provider. Prior to this, he was the India Country Head & Managing Director for ACI Worldwide Inc., a leading global payments solutions provider. He has held several roles in the past including Founder/CEO of startups backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, etc., in Silicon Valley; and CXO roles at British Telecom, VerticalNet, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank.
Venkat has been a Data Domain practitioner and continues to spend time in the converging AI, Data & Analytics space. He also has deep domain expertise in several verticals including Financial Services, Retail, Technology, and Telecom, and has been active in the Blockchain/Crypto domain the past few years.
He has lived and worked in three continents, running global teams, and is an alumnus of Boston University (Management & Business) and Indian Institute of Science (Electrical & Electronics Engineering).
Job Titles:
- Principal - Investment Management