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About

Wadhwani Foundation

Wadhwani Foundation is a not-for-profit with the primary mission of accelerating economic development by driving job creation through large-scale initiatives in entrepreneurship, small business growth, innovation, and skilling. Founded in 2000 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, today, the Foundation is scaling impact in multiple countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

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Founder and Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation

Romesh Wadhwani

  • Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist
  • Until 1999, built three successful companies, the last of which was exited at over $9 billion
  • Founding Chairman and CEO of $3.5 billion Symphony Technology Group
  • Founder and Chairman of Wadhwani Foundation (2003)
  • Founding Chairman of enterprise AI software firm Symphony AI (2017)
  • Founding Chairman of AI life sciences firm ConcertAI (2017)
  • Founding Chairman of SAIGroup investment firm (2021)
  • Member of the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge
  • Padma Shri 2020 awardee
  • President Obama appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John. F. Kennedy Center
  • Board Member of Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.

Maximizing Startup Success

Wadhwani Entrepreneur
Leadership Team

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Meetul B Patel

President
Wadhwani Global Entrepreneur

Sanjay Shah

Sanjay Shah

Chief Operating Officer,
India/SE Asia

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Rajeev Warrier

Executive Vice President,
Wadhwani Entrepreneur

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Sunita Singh

EVP, Wadhwani Foundation and
Co-founder, NEN

Overview

HomeAbout UsRomesh WadhwaniLeadership TeamBlog

Related Websites

Wadhwani FoundationWadhwani AdvantageWadhwani Skills NetworkWadhwani Institute of Technology and Policy

Programs

WEN Think Startup WEN Ignite WEN Liftoff

Partners and Advisors

NEN Partners NEN AdvisorsVFT PartnersVFT Advisors

Contact Us

nen@wfglobal.org

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Meetul B Patel

President,
Wadhwani Global Entrepreneur

Meetul heads the Wadhwani Advantage and NEN initiatives of the Foundation, globally.
  • Last served as Microsoft India’s Executive Director for Strategic Growth responsible for identifying large markets that could be opened up by emerging technologies and establishing strategic partnerships to develop the resulting opportunities in India and other Emerging Markets
  • Prior to this role, he served as Microsoft-India’s COO and oversaw business and product planning, marketing, and sales operations for Microsoft’s India subsidiary. He was responsible for defining strategy, managing investments, and orchestrating the organization to ensure the performance of the transforming Microsoft portfolio across Enterprise, Public Sector, Small Business, Consumer, and Partner segments
  • He holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Strategic Management and Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics from the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer
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Sanjay Shah

Sanjay Shah

Chief Operating Officer, India/SE Asia

Sanjay heads the India/SE Asia operations of the Wadhwani Advantage and Wadhwani Entrepreneur.

  • Over three decades of experience in founding and steering software product companies to the global market
  • Founded Zapty, Instavans Logistics, Skelta, Everest Software and Accel Computers, some of which were successfully acquired
  • Last stint was with iManage as its Managing Director for Asia responsible for business development of its solutions in Asia
  • On the board of Sasken Technologies and Instavans Logistics as an Independent Director, and on the advisory board of Avo Automation
  • Member of iSpirt (Indian Software Product Industry Round Table), Young President’s Organization, and currently on the board of the Bangalore chapter
  • M.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech and a B.Tech in Aeronautical Engineering from IIT, Bombay
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Rajeev Warrier

Executive Vice President, Wadhwani Entrepreneur

Rajeev leads the Wadhwani Entrepreneur initiative for India/SE Asia.

  • A software professional with engineering, business development and management experience in India, Australia, Canada and US
  • Has varied experience in general management, entrepreneurship, information technology, software development, consulting, and planning of technology for enterprise & e-commerce companies.
  • BE in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Bhopal and Post Graduate Diploma in Software Enterprise Management from IIM Bangalore
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Sunita Singh

EVP, Wadhwani Foundation and Co-founder, NEN

Sunita drives the Foundation’s global expansion.

  • Co-founded, modeled and led the Foundation’s entrepreneurship education program covering over 500 higher education institutes for over a decade
  • Led and executed the expansion of ‘Wadhwani Entrepreneur College’ and ‘Wadhwani SkillUp’ initiatives across 20-countries and 4-continents in 5-years
  • 25-years of experience with 15-years in leading operations and new market expansions in Asia and Africa
  • Led and executed strategic and creative PR campaigns for several multinational clients including Atos Origin, Lego, Mahindra Intertrade, Baskin Robbins, Netmagic, Mastek, Onward Technologies, TiE for over 3-years at Litmus PR, Mumbai
  • M.A. from Andhra University and MPhil from Sukhadia University
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Here is what we mean by a Validated Idea:

  • You have identified a ‘customer type’ that you are dealing with.
  • You have identified a problem that is critical for the that customer type
  • You have validated this problem with a ‘sizable’ set of customers so you know that it is a ‘real problem’
  • Your research and customer discussions shows that There is a large enough number of customers that are looking for a solution to this particular problem, and the venture can be financially viable and feasible
  • There are no apparent existing solutions or good enough solutions that are serving your customer type at this time for the problem
  • May have started working on a website/facebook/Instagram page to get customer reactions
  • May have worked on a prototype solution already
  • May have early traction with some customers