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Leadership
Our executive leadership, Read and learn about the strong minds behind Headstrong.
Headstrong Executive Leadership
Sandeep Sahai
President & Chief Executive Officer
Sandeep Sahai is president and CEO of Headstrong. Under his leadership, Headstrong doubled its revenues and quadrupled its profits between 2004 and 2009. He also architected a multi-year strategy that saw Headstrong evolve from a predominantly on-site consulting firm to a domain-led, globally distributed outsourcing company and eventually to a platform-based managed services multinational.
Mr. Sahai, 46, was a founder and partner of the consulting firm TechSpan that merged with Headstrong in 2003. He has more than 20 years of IT consulting experience. Prior to Headstrong and TechSpan, he was the CEO of Virginia-based SkanSoft, and also served for 10 years with the HCL group. Having started and grown companies in the US, Europe and India, he is a frequent speaker at industry conferences on offshore outsourcing as a strategic tool for IT managers.
Mr. Sahai has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and an engineering degree from the Institute of Technology, Varanasi.
Acky Kamdar
Managing Director, North America (Northeast) and Europe
Acky Kamdar is based out of New York, where he leads the New York and UK/European region in managing client relationships, delivery, sales, recruitment, and operations. In addition, Mr. Kamdar is responsible for the development of offerings and sales of competencies in data, wealth/asset management, derivatives, BIDW, securities financing and prime brokerage. Mr. Kamdar is also part of the Headstrong’s Executive Leadership Management (HELM) team that oversight all key corporate functions like strategy, marketing, and mergers and acquisitions.
Over the last decade, Mr. Kamdar has lead Headstrong into financial services by establishing key strategic relationships with top full-service global securities firms in New York and London. Prior to joining Headstrong, he worked with Compaq where he managed the regional channel and distribution strategy for its servers and PCs. Mr. Kamdar started his career in 1985 with HCL Group where he managed a business unit with P&L responsibility selling HP server-based business and CAD solutions for large clients as well as launching PC-based solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses and home users.
Mr. Kamdar graduated from Mumbai University where he completed a Bachelors in Commerce (Accountancy and Finance) and later a Masters in Management Studies (MMS) in 1985. Mr. Kamdar completed an Executive MBA from Stern School of Business, New York University in 2006.
Nicki Mehra
Managing Director, North America
Mr. Mehra serves as managing director of Headstrong. He is responsible for North American operations including east, west, south and central regions.
Mr. Mehra was a co-founder of TechSpan, which merged with Headstrong in October 2003. Prior to that, he was the executive vice president for a consulting company that grew from $18 million to $52 million in annual revenues during his tenure.
Mr. Mehra has more than 25 years of IT industry experience. He also spent 15 years with the HCL Group, where he helped start and grow HCL-Deluxe Inc., a joint venture with Deluxe Corporation focusing on the financial services market.
Mr. Mehra is a Harvard Business School AMP graduate and holds a business degree from University of Delhi.
Puneet Pushkarna
Managing Director, Asia-Pacific
Mr. Pushkarna serves as managing director of Headstrong responsible for the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to Headstrong, he was co-founder and managing partner of TechSpan, which merged with Headstrong in October 2003.
Mr. Pushkarna has more than 25 years of experience in the software services and consulting business. At TechSpan, in addition to running US operations, he was responsible for setting up the collaborative partner program and establishing key strategic partnerships. Prior to TechSpan, Mr. Pushkarna was head of sales and business development at InfoGain, a business solutions consulting organization focused on e-business value chain management. Before that, he spent 11 years with HCL Group in a variety of sales and management positions.
Mr. Pushkarna is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), a non-profit network with over 10,000 members across 44 chapters in nine countries. TiE fosters global entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking and education. Mr. Pushkarna is a frequent speaker at industry forums dealing with entrepreneurship and distributed consulting. He has a B.Tech in Engineering from India and an MBA from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Anurag Singh
Managing Director, Enterprise Application Services & Manila GDC
Anurag Singh is the Global Delivery Head for Enterprise Application Services (EAS) group and has been with Headstrong since 2000.
The EAS group is responsible for Delivery, Operations, Solutioning, Competency building and Product Management. The group provides end-to-end services on Oracle, SAP, Trading Platforms, Asset Servicing, Recon Platforms, Compliance Reporting Platforms, BI/DW and Testing.
Anurag also manages the Manila GDC which specializes in Oracle, Interactive Learning and Content Management, Expense Management, Web Development and Testing.
Prior to running EAS, Anurag was responsible for establishing the Managed Services business and was also a part of the core group that established Headstrong’s capital markets business. Before joining Headstrong, Anurag worked at COSL, a Citigroup company, providing software and services in the banking space, leading complex global projects in distributed technologies. Anurag has over 20 years of experience in the software and began his career at CMC, developing bespoke ERP solutions for Container Terminals.
Anurag holds a B. Tech from IIT Bombay.
KNK Venkataraman
Senior Vice President, IT Services
K N K Venkataraman, popularly known as ‘KNK’ is responsible for the Global IT Infrastructure Services Business at Genpact. He is also on the board of Genpact Mobility Service (India) Pvt Ltd. KNK joined Genpact in April 2008, prior to which he was with Wipro in various roles.
KNK has over 20 years of experience in the IT Services industry in areas of business management, practice incubation, service delivery, relationship management, channel development, business development, innovation, M&A and customer services. His strengths lie in visualizing and implementing innovative business goals with a breadth of diverse experience in IT services. He is a strategic thinker with a pragmatic approach to implementation and driving the vision to reality. KNK has authored white papers and has been a guest speaker at several international and industry forums. He has been featured in magazines for thought leadership on offshore IT Infrastructure management and Franchisee support models.
KNK is an electronics and communications engineer (ECE) from Coimbatore Institute of Technology (CIT). He is active on the board of studies of ECE in CIT.
Rampi Kandadai
Managing Director, Domain Consulting
Rampi Kandadai has over twenty-seven years of experience with the technology consulting, outsourcing, and off-shoring industry, and has been with Headstrong since 1999.
As the Global Head of the Domain Consulting practice, Rampi is charged with nurturing and growing expertise-based services focused on the Capital Markets industry, built around a core group of people who can deliver a very differentiated value to clients. The team includes Subject Matter Experts, BAs, and Solution Architects, and focuses on specific domain areas – viz., Derivatives Post-trade, Wealth Management, Enterprise Data, Risk & Compliance, Securities Lending, Asset Management, and IT Management Optimization Services.
During his tenure with Headstrong, he has, over time, been responsible for delivery to the West Coast Operations, a founding member of the Financial Services Division, responsible for delivery to NY and London clients, and Head of Delivery for NA. As the Delivery Partner for a number of key Headstrong clients, he has been responsible for the ongoing success of services delivery, customer satisfaction, and growth.
Prior to joining Headstrong, Rampi has spent over 16 years in IT consulting – a large part of that was focused on developing India-based offshore software delivery centers and managing the delivery of software projects for clients in the US and in Europe.
Rampi is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, where he specialized in Management Information Systems.
Sandeepan Mukherjee
Managing Director, Capital Markets Sell Side
Sandeepan Mukherjee is the Global Delivery Head for Capital markets Sell Side vertical. In his present role he is jointly responsible for managing the Capital Markets Sell-side business from a P&L perspective which includes pre-sales, delivery of solutions and managing cross-disciplinary teams across the globe. Previously, Sandeepan has held many key positions within Headstrong and is presently part of the Headstrong Executive Leadership team. He has been instrumental in growing several key accounts to large relationships for Headstrong which include Bank of America, Caremark, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs etc.
Before joining Headstrong, Mr. Mukherjee was joint head of operations of HCL-Answerthink a Joint Venture formed between HCL and Answerthink, He was responsible for operations of the JV, business development and revenue. Prior to this he spend more than 10 years with HCL in various leadership positions including Regional Head of Eastern Operations.
Sandeepan has more than twenty five years of experience in the Information Technology field that includes business development, developing business and IT Strategies, assessing technologies for business fit and doing offshore development across geographies. He has been part of major product development initiatives and holds a US Patent for developing a ‘Network Sniffer’.
Sandeepan holds a Masters in Applied Mathematics from St. Stephens College, Delhi University and a Business Management degree from Harvard Business School, Harvard University.
Sudhir Singh
Senior Vice President, BFSI
Sudhir joined Genpact in June, 2010 and is the Head of the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance ITO Business for Genpact.
Prior to this he spent close to a decade with Infosys in the US. At Infosys Sudhir was an Invitee to the Infosys Global Management Committee between 2006-10, the Head of the Infosys South-West US Geo Unit and the Founder and Practice Leader of the Infosys Payments and Cards Practice within the BFSI Vertical. His areas of interest/expertise include the Financial Technologies and the evolving e-payments and e-commerce space. He has worked extensively across the BPO-ITO intersect.
Sudhir joined Levers (H.L.L./Unilever) from Campus at IIM-Calcutta and spent 6 years with them as a Brand Manager and Sales manager before transitioning to his first stint with Infosys as a Business Development Manager in the South-West US.
Sudhir is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management and the Institute of Technology.
Adarsh Mehra
Managing Director & Global Head of Finance
As global head of finance, Mr. Mehra is responsible for Headstrong’s global accounting and finance functions, including acquisitions.
Mr. Mehra joined Headstrong as part of the merger with TechSpan, where he was vice president of MIS. Prior to joining TechSpan, he was vice president for operations and finance at Trigyn Technologies, Inc. He also served as chief financial officer of HCL America and HCL James Martin, and was a senior executive in a number of other organizations.
Mr. Mehra holds a Bachelor of Accounting and Commerce and Chartered Accountant degree (the highest accounting degree in India) from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He has also participated in the executive management development program at Xavier Labor Relations Institute (XLRI) in India.
John Gaunt
Managing Director, HR Business Partner
John has over 25 years of experience in Human Resources across the Retail, Business Consulting and Outsourcing industries. He has rich global experience of managing HR functions across the globe. John has lived and worked in the USA, Asia, UK and eastern Europe. He joined Genpact in 2010 and where he was the European HR leader Genpact prior to taking on his current role as the Global HR lead for Capital Markets and IT across Genpact. He has extensive experience in site set-up, rebadging and works council discussion and negotiation. John graduated from the University of Pretoria in South Africa.
Alphonse Valbrune
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
As general counsel and corporate secretary, Mr. Valbrune is an integral part of Headstrong’s management team, responsible for promoting Headstrong’s operational effectiveness by identifying, analyzing, and managing legal issues. He also serves as corporate secretary to the Board of Directors and, leading a dedicated group of legal, contracts and risk management personnel, is responsible for counseling senior management on all significant legal issues and transactions.
Mr. Valbrune previously served as Headstrong’s deputy general counsel. Prior to Headstrong, Mr. Valbrune was an associate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance as lead associate on transactions ranging from several million to several billion dollars and representing both issuers and underwriters in initial public offerings.
Mr. Valbrune holds an AB Degree from Harvard College and a Juris Doctor Degree from Columbia University School of Law.
Genpact Leadership
Our parent company, Genpact, offers industry-leading services that create transformative change for our clients. Our expanded global footprint allows us to deliver from more locations, and our overall scale gives us the ability to staff projects more quickly with exactly the right people.
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