Elements Akademia : About Us - Management Team, Consulting Resources & Academic Advisors

Elements Akademia is a private limited company registered in NCR, India. It is fully funded by the management team and a group of angel investors, who are typically IIM alumni and mid/senior professionals from some of the world's most admired companies like Goldman Sachs, CSFB, GE, P&G, Bank of America etc.

We have a BIG, BOLD vision to be the leader in high-quality job oriented courses in India and other developing countries. We have courses on Banking, Financial Services, Retail and Insurance being offered to students in North India and courses on LPO, KPO etc. in the pipeline - our focus on growth makes us continue to look at niche, as yet unexploited areas.

Our tieup with SIMSR (KJ Somaiya's Bschool, India' Top 20 MBA programmes) assures a very high academic rigour and quality. The current growth projection is "10 by 10"... $10mn revenues by 2010.

		CEO: Nishant Saxena Nishant has eight years of experience in Corporate Finance/Planning with Procter & Gamble – including Strategic Planning, M&A, and Corporate Finance. Worked across various geographies in Asia (Japan, Philippines, India and Singapore). Nishant has also taught in IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Lucknow, National University of Singapore and SP Jain as guest/adjunct faculty. He has been profiled by Business World as a "Leader-in-Making", and has been a consistent top talent within P&G. He is returning to India to start this company. Nishant is a BE from NITT and MBA from IIML.

		Honorary Dean: Prof. Tapan Bagchi Prof. Bagchi served 16 years in Exxon Mobil US and was a recipient of Extraordinary Contributor award there. He then returned to India to teach in IIT Kanpur – where he set up IITK's Bschool, then headed NITIE and finally moved as Dean, SP Jain Dubai Bschool. He has authored 6 text books and 75 papers. He currently is associated with IIT Mumbai and is leading research into KPOs. Prof. Bagchi is a BTech from IIT Kanpur and PhD from University of Toronto, Ontario in Canada.

		Head, Operations: Ankur Agrawal Ankur brings extensive experience in starting companies. Most recently, he started an HR consulting/recruiting firm (jobsjunction), and scaled it from zero to 5 cities in less than an year. Prior to that, in ICICI Lombard he helped lead the fledgling MNC clients segment. Before that in Philips, he was a core member of the rural distribution team for their Lighting division, and set up the network in 4 north Indian states. Ankur is a Commerce Graduate and an MBA from IIML.

		Head, Content Development: Arti Chaudhry Arti has 16 years Training experience - as one of the founding members of ECS Ltd (a leading management consulting firm in India), then as Training Head, Eicher's Gear Business, and finally as HR head, Goodearth Studioline. Recently, Arti has been an independent consultant to clients like The India Today Group, WHO, The British School, Federation of Hotels and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), Hughes Software, The Park Hotels, Coca Cola India, Siemens Ltd, L&T, Genpact, etc. Arti is a Bachelor of Economics from St. Stephens, Delhi University

		Head, Sales: Suhaib Siddiqui Suhaib has experience in the areas of Business Development and Client relationship management. He has worked in startup environments before where he developed a quality client base for the company while heading the sales team. Suhaib is an MBA from Fortune Institute of International Business, with advanced course from IIM Lucknow.

		Head, Training: Deepali Chandra Deepali provides the corporate exposure, experience and expertise in training candidates on Communication skills, Interview skills, Over-all Grooming and Personality Development, Voice & Accent and Soft- Skills. Besides having a proven track record of having up-skilled a large no. of trainees for voice in multinational companies like GENPACT with an enviable 70% conversion rate and corporate training for Customer and Selling Skills for MNC's like Barclays Bank, she brings with her over 8 years of an all-rounded work experience in other companies like Akiko Callnet, Hero Ites, Air Hostess Academy, Intercard (India) Ltd. and sectors such as Advertising and Hospitality Management. Deepali is a baccalaureate from Delhi University with One year Diploma in Sales & Marketing from the Apex Institute of Professional Training, British Tack Training, New Delhi.

		Overall Advisor: Prof. Pritam Singh, Padmashri. Former Director, IIM Lucknow. Former Director (and Professor of Eminence), MDI Gurgaon Dr. Pritam Singh has devoted his life to the development of management education: He led refocussing of IIM Bangalore as an integrated management school, catapulted IIML to India's Top Bschool, delivered a dramatic turnaround of MDI and developed more than thirty international collaborations in 5 years. He is on the board of nearly a hundred top institutions (RBI, HAL, Oriental, SCI, UTI etc). He has also been conferred with many prestigious awards including ESCORT Award¸ FORE Award¸ Best Motivating Professor IIM Bangalore Award¸ Best Director of Indian Management Schools¸ Outstanding CEO (Chief Executive Officer) National HRD Award etc. Dr. Singh is the author of seven academically reputed books and published over 50 research papers. An M.Com (BHU)¸ MBA (USA)¸ Ph.D. (BHU)¸ Dr. Singh is the author of seven academically reputed books and published over 50 research papers.

		Advisor, Academic Programme: Prof. Suresh Ghai, Director, KJ Somaiya Business School Prof. Suresh Ghai has been the Director of K J Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, one of the top 20 Management Institutes in India, since 2001. Prof. Ghai has worked in the Industry for 28 years in the areas of Marketing and International Business. He has conducted several senior level MDPs and has presented papers at several prestigious conferences and seminars. Prof. Ghai is the Honorary Secretary of Bombay Management Association. Prof. Ghai is a BE from IIT Roorkee and an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad.

		Advisor, Operations: Prof. Rajiv Srivastava, Former Dean, IIM Lucknow Rajiv Srivastava is a Professor at IIM Lucknow focusing on Operations Management. His emphasis on Manufacturing and IT applications in Operations Management has helped create one of the most comprehensive collections of Operations Management software in any academic institution. Prof. Srivastava is B.Tech (IIT K), PGDIE (NITIE Mumbai) and Ph.D. (Virginia Tech. USA)

		Advisor, Business Communication: Prof. Neerja Pandey, Chair Communications Group, IIM Lucknow Prof Neeraja Pande is an Associate Professor in IIM Lucknow in the communications group. She teaches Communication for Management and International Business Communication courses. Her research interests are in Corporate Communication; Managerial Excellence through Effective Communication and Organizational Integration Through Strategic Communication. She is currently consulting on Interpersonal Communication Skills; Media and Crisis Communication Skills and Communication Strategies for Business Image Development. Prof. Pandey is a PhD in English from LU.

		Advisor, Managerial Effectiveness: Prof. Archana Shukla, PGP Chair, IIM Lucknow Prof. Archana Shukla is a Professor in the Human Resource Management group in IIM Lucknow. She teaches Organizational Structure & Design and Team Building courses. Her research interests are in Knowledge Management and New forms of organizations. Her consulting interests are in Group dynamics, Team building and Organizational design. She has been a management consultant for J&J, Reckitt Benkiser, Hughes Software, SBI, SAIL, Crompton Greaves etc. Prof. Archana Shukla has a Ph.D.(Organizational Behaviour) from IIT Kanpur.