Movers And Shakers Of The Week [17 April – 22 April]

C1X Appoints Gokul Rajaram To Advisory Board

Silicon Valley-based advertising and marketing technology (AMT) company C1X (Class One Exchange) has roped in Gokul Rajaram as its advisor. In his new role at C1X, he will be helping the team to expand globally and push towards its goal to become a multi-billion dollar company.

Gokul is often addressed as the “The Godfather of Adsense,” due to his key role in the early success of one of Google’s most profitable products. Since leaving Google in 2007, he has founded (and sold) his own startup, Chai Labs, led ad-product strategy at Facebook and joined Square to help the San Francisco-based company revolutionise the world of commerce.

He holds a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur, MS in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Sloan School of Management.

iSPIRT’s Sharad Sharma Joins YourNest Advisory Board for Fund 2

Delhi-based early stage venture capital firm, YourNest has announced the advisory board for its recently launched $46.3 Mn (INR 300 Cr) YourNest India VC Fund 2. Sharad Sharma, co-founder and CEO of iSPIRT, Ashish Gupta, founder of Evalueserve & Benori Ventures, and Prof. Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director IIM-Indore are the first three appointees to the proposed eight-member board. The other five seats will be represented by institutional investors.

Sharad Sharma is the cofounder of iSPIRT, the think tank for Indian software products and is a member of its governing council. He was the CEO of Yahoo! India R&D centre and turned around VERITAS operations in India. He was the Chair of NASSCOM Product Forum and a member of the Executive Council from 2009-13. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded Teltier, now part of Cisco. He is one of the most active technology angel investors in India with about two dozen investments.

Ashish Gupta is a successful entrepreneur and an angel investor. He is the Founder at Benori Ventures LLP – a firm that incubates, accelerates, and invests in startups in India. He is also on the board of Innov8 Co-Working and Laureate Education India. He is an IIT Delhi alum and holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University – Tepper School of Business.

Professor Krishnan is a recognised expert in the area of innovations with an India focus. He is currently serving as the Director & Professor of Strategy at Indian Institute of Management Indore. He holds an MSc in Physics from IIT Kanpur, and MS in Engineering Economic Systems, from Stanford University.

ShopX Appoints Kirti Varun From Amazon

Bengaluru-based ShopX, a digital offline platform that powers small retailers in India has appointed Kirti Varun to head the Product Management function. He joins ShopX as Vice President of Product Management and will be a part of ShopX’s leadership team.

He will work closely with the ShopX co-founders Amit Sharma (CEO) and Apoorva Jois (COO) to help the company achieve its mission of organising commerce in India through technology to make it accessible and valuable to everyone.

Prior to ShopX, Kirti was a Principal Product Manager with Amazon India, where he was responsible for building India-specific product innovations to improve key customer inputs such as pricing, inventory, affordability, and selection. Previously, he was a Senior Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company, where he led client engagements across multiple sectors and functions. He also played a pivotal role in building the Digital Banking practice for McKinsey in India.

Kirti earlier handled multiple roles in Operations and Project Management at ITC Limited, where he led breakthrough innovation projects using Lean and Six Sigma methodologies to improve quality and productivity and reduce cost of operations.