The Leadership Team

Neelakantha Karinje leads the executive team for achieving the vision and mission of Foradian. Neel has 25 years of experience as CFO for startup companies as well as the well-established multinational corporation. Neel believes with innovative EdTech solution like Fedena we can bring automation in the institutes' daily operations and help the schools all around the world to run better.

Bala has about 30+ years of experience in the IT Industry. Prior to joining Foradian, he worked with Flextronics, TechMahindra, and various MNCs. There he led engineering teams across multiple geo-locations to successful product delivery for clients across the US, Europe, and Israel. He has also managed the key product deliveries for IBM, Draegerwerk, Nortel, Cisco, Comverse, SiriusXM, and Sun Microsystems. Bala holds an engineering degree in E&E from IISc, Bangalore.

William Bissell is the managing director of FabIndia. Fabindia is India's largest private platform for products that are made from traditional techniques, skills and hand-based processes. Over three decades, Bissell grew Fabindia from just two retail locations in Delhi to over 117 stores. Bissell added a non-textile range in 2000 and organic foods in 2004, personal care products in 2006 and handcrafted jewellery in 2008. He is also known as an author, thought leader and an angel investor. He invested $2mm in Foradian in 2014.

Yaron Valler is the General Partner at Target Global a private equity and venture capital firm focuses primarily on fast-growing digital-enabled B2C and B2 SMB companies in e-Commerce, FinTech, travel, software, and mobile. Prior to Target Global, Yaron managed Hasso Plattner Ventures a Berlin-based technology fund started by Hasso Plattner, the founder and chairman of SAP. Formerly Yaron led the enterprise software practice at Giza Venture Capital, was an early stage investor at the Technion Incubator, and a co-founder and VP of business development at Excedo Technologies. Yaron holds an MBA from INSEAD in France and a B.Sc. in Information Systems Engineering from Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

Srikanth was most recently the CEO at Pearson India. Previously, he co-founded Edurite Technologies, a leading e-content provider in the education space. Under Srikanth’s leadership, Edurite grew by leaps and bounds and was lead to an acquisition by TutorVista; a global online tutoring company, and further acquisition by Pearson in 2011. Srikanth Iyer is now a venture partner in Unitus Seed Fund and is focusing on capitalizing the growing opportunities in the affordable education space in India. He is also the co-founder & CEO of HomeLane - a new age Interior design firm.

With over 30 years of specialised experience in structuring of joint ventures, foreign collaborations and devising entry strategies, Vikas Vig has expert knowledge of the regulatory framework in India pertaining to foreign inward investment and local taxation, audit and accounting practices. He serves as a director on the board of many multinational companies doing business in India.

Angela De Giacomo has been managing Mr Bissell’s family office since early 2013 and has also represented Mr Bissell on Foradian’s Board since April 2014. Prior to that, she worked as a Manager in the M&A tax practice of KPMG in Frankfurt, Germany. She holds a master's degree in Economics from Baden-Wuerttemberg State University, and is a member of the Chamber for certified tax advisors in Germany (“Steuerberater”) since 2009.