Leadership - GlobalEdge SoftwareGlobalEdge Software

MP Kumar, Founder and Mentor at GlobalEdge Software, is driven by a powerful desire for engineering intelligence into things. He was also the former CEO at GlobalEdge, before he stepped down from his active executive role in January 2020. A true visionary, Kumar has been instrumental in building strategic alliances with industry partners and investors. He has helped the company grow since its inception in 1992, enabling close alliances with global enterprises through the journey. With a keen understanding of the dynamics at play in the competitive technology landscape, Kumar steers GlobalEdge to stay well beyond industry standards and market changes. Given his unparalleled experience, Kumar has mentored numerous technology start-ups and is a speaker of renown at several industry forums. With a dream of technological development, he is set on connecting the world with intelligence.

Sanjeev Varma is responsible for the overall Indian operations and strategy. Prior to joining Altran, he was the CEO of Steria India, where he played a pivotal role in the integration of Xansa with Groupe Steria. He was also a member of the global executive committee at Steria. Sanjeev was based out of the US, with HCL Technologies America, before he joined Steria.

With around 35 years of experience, Sanjeev has controlled and marked focus in key business areas such as Business Planning Strategy, Corporate Finance and M&A. His expertise spans across managing global corporate strategies, building and maintaining talents across geographies, profitable turnaround of operations through effective business strategies, and building strong leadership teams.

Sanjeev has been conferred with several awards by Deloitte, along with Thought Leaders & Stars Group, as a “thinker, and for the power of his ideas to transform the IT arena.” Sanjeev also won the CEO of the Year Award at the Global Brand Excellence Awards in October 2013.

Phaneesh is a widely-acclaimed serial entrepreneur, and has caused several business model disruptions in the technology landscape over the last 25 years. He propagated the “faster-cheaper-better” way of IT outsourcing that gave rise to the famed IT offshoring industry in India. His stint at Infosys as their Head of Sales, Marketing, and Product Engineering saw the company grow from $2 million to over $700 million in less than 10 years, transforming the company into a sought-after offshore bellwether. He later founded Quintant – a business services provisioning company – and merged it with IGATE Corporation in 2003.

Phaneesh graduated with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras, and received his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Srinath Batni is an Independent Board Member of Cigniti Technologies, President of the Management Committee at the National Institute of Engineering in Mysore, Co-Founder & Director, Axilor Ventures Pvt. Ltd., and an Independent Board Member of Axiscades Ltd.

Srinath served as a full-time director of Infosys Ltd. from 2000 to 2014, and before that, he was the Head of Delivery Excellence, Co-Head of Worldwide Customer Delivery, and SVP & Head, Retail & Telecom.

Mr. Batni received a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Mysore University and an M.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Saurabh Srivastava is one of India’s leading entrepreneurs, investors and institution builders, widely acknowledged as one of the architects of the Indian IT Industry and as leading the creation of a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. He has worked extensively in the US, UK, Singapore, and India. The Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has presented him an award for contribution to the Indian IT Industry and the President of India has awarded him the Padma Shri.

He co-founded and chaired key institutions of modern India, focused on entrepreneurship: NASSCOM (Indian IT Industry Association), the Indian Venture Capital Association, TiE (the world’s largest organization focused on entrepreneurship), and the Indian Angel Network (the world’s largest investor group).

After a successful stint in the US and India with IBM and Unisys, he turned to entrepreneurship and founded several successful IT companies, one ranked amongst the top 20 Indian software companies. He created India’s first and highly successful private sector VC fund, which created several marquee companies. He has been involved in investing in around 100 start-ups and has personally mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs. He has serves/has served on the boards of reputed public companies in the US, UK, and India.

Saurabh graduated with a B.Tech degree from IIT Kanpur and received his Master’s Degree from Harvard University.

Keith Williams has over 20 years’ experience in the engineering and technology industries. Keith is responsible for Technology and World Class Centres leadership for the Altran Group, including Product & Systems R&D, Manufacturing & Operations, Digitization, and Industrial Enterprise. This also includes technology topics such as Internet of Things, Big Data, and Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

Keith began his career working on the Channel Tunnel Project, and has held a range of technical, business, and leadership roles, including Managing Director of Altran Praxis, a world-renowned specialist in safety-critical systems

Keith received a First Class Honours degree in Computer Science from Wolverhampton. He is also a Chartered Engineer, a Freeman of the City of London, a Liveryman in the Worshipful Company of Engineers, a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, a Member of the Safety and Reliability Society, and a Chartered IT Professional. He also sits on the leadership board of ESCO, the UK Electronic Systems Council.

Marc has spent his entire career in corporate investment, successively performing various roles in consulting, investor capital, and corporate M&A.

After graduating from HEC in 1997, Marc worked with Schneider Electric in New York (1997-1999), managing financial assets and non-electric activities. He then joined Lazard, in New York, as an analyst (1999-2000) and then manager, in Paris (2000-2001), in mergers and acquisitions. From 2001 to 2009, Marc worked as Investment Manager, and then Director, at Ixen Partners (Natixis mid-market LBO fund), with a parenthesis in 2005 where he spent a year, mainly in Singapore, obtaining an MBA from INSEAD. In 2011, Marc created his own company, specialized in advisory and investment, called Tamerlan Investment Partners, associated with Richard Simonin (former CEO of Kenzo, Harrods, Etam, Limoni, and Vivarte).

Appointed as a consultant by Altran at the end of 2012, Marc joined the Altran Group as Head of M&A and Structured Financing, and since April 2015, that has been his current position.

Mark Phillips has successfully lead technology and software development efforts for many years. He has held executive positions at various early-stage technology companies in Silicon Valley. These include CTO and Vice President of Engineering positions at Insession, Angara, General Magic, and Knowmadic. Mark has also been involved in a software partnership, which acquired software companies, growing them and then successfully exiting the merged entities. He began his career at IBM and Tandem Computers.

Mark earned a Master of Science Degree in Physics from Oxford University. He holds 15 patents.

Olivier joined Altran Group in August 2017. Prior to joining Altran, he worked at Technip for 8 years in different positions including VP – Project Cost Control & Risk Management for the EMIA area (Europe, Middle-East, India and Africa), CFO for the Asia-Pacific region (based in Malaysia), and CFO for Southeast Europe and Latin America (based in Italy).

Olivier also worked in Alcatel-Lucent for 12 years and in Arthur Andersen, as an external auditor, for 5 years.

Olivier graduated from Paris Dauphine and obtained an MBA from Nichols State University in Louisiana, USA.

Nadeem Ahmed is a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, having experience in financial and fiscal management departments, providing leadership to the Finance, Accounting, Business Planning and Budgeting, Treasury, Taxation, Legal and Reporting activities of the company. He has over 20 years of work experience and has worked on corporate mergers and acquisitions, de-mergers, business integration, standardization and implementation of financial systems, and the leadership of financial teams.

He has significant experience in setting up strategy and managing the Software Development Centre in India for large MNC companies.

Prior to Altran, he worked in Nokia, Cisco, Sony, and a Big 4 Audit firm in India.

Daniel Chaffraix has been Executive Vice President in charge of Transformation since 2015. Daniel started his career in the banking industry, and later, went to spend more than 20 years at IBM in various positions contributing to far-reaching transformations within the group, serving as CEO of IBM France, European Executive of IBM Global Services, as well as the Manufacturing & Development Manager. Before that, Daniel served as CFO of Axone Group. Starting in 2010, Daniel Chaffraix served as Chief Executive Officer of Infrastructure Services for various geographic areas at Capgemini, where he contributed to a range of transformations and customer deals.

Daniel is a graduate of Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Clermont Ferrand (1980) and the University of Kansas (1981).

Executive Team

M P Kumar

Founder and Mentor

Ravi Kiran Vernekar

Chief Executive Officer, CEO

Ian Carvalho

Chief Technology Officer

Naganagouda S J

Vice President & Head – Human Resources

Deepak Kumar

Vice President & Head of Engineering

Ramesh D

Chief Financial Officer

Board Of Directors

M P Kumar

Founder and Mentor

Daniel Chaffraix

EVP – Transformation, Altran

Sanjeev Varma

CEO, Altran India

Olivier Sergent

Group VP – Controlling, Altran