The Management Team
Nikhil Barshikar
Managing Director
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Nikhil Barshikar is the Founder & Managing Director of Imarticus. His sixteen years career spans a smorgasbord of roles within Investment Banking, all of which culminated in the founding of Imarticus Learning, a leading player in Finance and Business Analytics education. He began his career in the Corporate Finance division of the erstwhile Lehman Brothers at New York, following which he moved to Mumbai to set up Lehman’s India operations. He has successfully managed large Operations, Technology, and Project teams at Nomura. His in-depth Investment Banking experience, ranging from strategic design to risk-free transition, while handling large people-driven organizations, has given him an excellent appraisal of the dilemmas faced by Financial Services and Analytics Consulting firms. His hands-on investing experience across the Fintech and Financial Services Education space provides him in keen insight into the hiring and training needs which enables him to develop tailor-made strategies and solutions. He holds a joint MBA from Columbia University and London Business School.
Sonya Hooja
Chief Operating Officer
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As the Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder at Imarticus Learning, Sonya Hooja plays a key role in developing and implementing business strategy, directing business development, and recruiting top talent resources. In her career of over 15 years, she has been involved in strategy development and project management roles across diverse industries such as financial services, education, tourism, public sector, and pharmaceuticals. She began her career at Accenture, where she formulated and executed a five-year tourism strategy for the government of Brunei. This was followed by project management and consulting roles at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers across US, Singapore, and India. She has also conducted workshops with the Prime Minister’s Office in Singapore, to teach key consulting, problem-solving and project management skills, which could be applied in their advisory capacities. Sonya holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Harish Thakkar
ED and Head – Corporate Relations
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Harish is a part of the founding team and heads the B2B business, manages Corporate Training and Temping business at Imarticus. Prior to this, he has played multiple roles running the B2C centres and heading the Training division at Imarticus.
He has 23 years of experience in Global Financial Market Operations and in his last assignment, managed a multi-region business process for Capgemini. He has also set up Training Academies at JP Morgan and Nomura India. He is a law graduate and loves spending time in spiritual pursuits.
Jasjeet Kaur
Head – Western Region
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Jasjeet Kaur was a part of the founding member team at Imarticus Learning and joined the firm in the year 2012.During her five-year duration in the firm, she has undertaken multiple roles and was a key contributor to set up the flagship Imarticus Center at Mumbai. Jasjeet has a rich experience of 24 years in financial services and attributes a lot of her key skills and knowledge to her five-year stint at the erstwhile Lehman Brothers before she joined Imarticus Learning. The myriad of roles she undertook at Lehman Brothers in the areas of Investment Banking, HR & Change Management helped her to develop the diverse skills required during the set up phase of the firm.
Jasjeet completed her MBA in marketing and has a keen interest in Fitness and traveling. She is also passionate about skill development and likes to contribute by conducting internal training across Imarticus centers.
Apurva Sheth
Executive Director
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Apurva takes care of client relationships as well as trainer empanelment at Imarticus. He drives the product portfolio for corporates and is responsible for managing client expectations. With his rich experience in Learning industry, he is responsible to onboard best of the facilitators for different verticals.
Prior to Imarticus, Apurva was the Co-Founder and MD of Silver Brook learning centre which started operations in 2006. Apurva scaled the company to a successful exit in early 2016. Prior to that, he was an MD of HOC, a technology company with a presence in ETRM services. He began his career with Citibank in Risk Management.
Apurva is a commerce graduate with strong acumen in areas of Business and Finance. He loves to travel and play Badminton and table tennis. He is associated with an NGO that looks after kids suffering from cancer and this is what gives him tremendous self-satisfaction.
Shikha Sethi
Head – Academic Business Portfolio
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Shikha is passionate about making quality education accessible to the next generation. At Imarticus, she focuses her efforts on University outreach and academic collaboration. She was earlier responsible for setting up placements as well as Enterprise sales business. She has over 15 years of extensive work experience in sales, Strategic Partnerships and Business Development. Prior to joining Imarticus she worked with organisations such as Fidelity Information Systems, America Online and Mirus Solutions.
Shikha holds an MBA degree from Apeejay School of Marketing.
Ravikiran Peesapati
Head – South And North Region
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Driven by passion for people, business and numbers, Ravi manages the south-zone business for Imarticus.
Prior to Imarticus, Ravi has 17 years of rich experience in Investment banking and Asset Management operations across product landscape. During this period Ravi has also delivered projects in automation and integration.
Ravi is passionate about building high performance teams and enjoys being involved in problem solving and driving business growth.
Ravi holds an MBA from Symbiosis and has undergone a senior management program from IIM-C. In his free time Ravi loves running marathons and spending time with family.
Advisory Council
Amit Nanavati
BOD
Mr Nanavati currently serves as the Managing Director of AN Steel Corp
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and Bralco International Trading (Shanghai). He sits on the board of Imarticus Learning and has been managing businesses for over forty years and is a graduate of 1975 class of IIM, Ahmedabad and holds an LLB from Maneklal Nanavati Law College (Class of 1975).
S.K. Mitra
Mr. Mitra is a well-known financial services professional in India and was
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actively involved in setting up Standard Chartered Bank in India. Following that he became the Country Head- Corporate and Investment Banking at American Express Bank. Thereafter, he became the Managing Director of GIC Mutual Fund. In 1994 he joined the Aditya Birla Group as the Director, Financial Services and set up a very successful financial services business for the Group. He currently serves as Director on a number of boards and acts as an Advisor to a diverse set of companies. He is also involved with several reputed NGOs. He is a regular contributor to domestic and international publications and is a regular speaker in various forums. He has also been active in several important Committees and Chambers in India.
Amit Ratanpal
BOD
Amit is the co-founder of BlinC, an investment operations company
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and sits on the Board of Imarticus Learning. He has about sixteen years of experience in Private Equity, Capital Markets, Asset management and Investment banking. Prior to BlinC, he was one of founding members at Kaizen Private Equity Fund, India’s first Education focused Private Equity Fund. He has held various advisory positions including being on the board of Thunderbird Private Equity Center at Thunderbird Global School of Management, Arizona, an advisory member of the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network for India, and advisory member for Angel Xpress, which focuses on educating slum children in Mumbai. He is a Chartered Accountant, an E-MBA from NMIMS, and part of the General Management program at Harvard Business School.
Sanjiv Malhotra
Sanjiv has over 40 years of Global Banking & Finance experience in
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senior positions in Risk Management, Private Equity, Corporate and Investment Banking, Consumer Finance, Micro Enterprise lending & Wealth Management. He is a seasoned Business and Risk management professional with a sound knowledge of Global Financial Markets and well versed in Crisis Management. He has experience working in Canada, England, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, and with Global Financial Institutions like Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bank Danamon (A Temasek Group owned Financial Institution), Bank of Montreal, and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant and specialized in advisory and tax for small businesses in London.
Lalit Ahuja
Lalit is currently the Managing Director for Mast Global Business Services
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(an L Brands Company), Co-founder & CEO of ANSR Consulting and the Founding Partner at Kyron. Previously, Lalit served as a Chair and President of Target India, and CEO for Datamatics, LG Group’s Software and R&D operations and News Corporation – STAR TV. While at News Corporation, Lalit was also the CEO of the News Corporation Venture Capital Fund in India (managing a portfolio of $250 M) and founding Managing Director of NDS Ltd (now a Cisco company). Lalit started his career in the Indian Navy before retiring as a Lieutenant Commander. Lalit holds an MS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.