BOSTON—TiE Boston, a non-profit organization that has been fostering entrepreneurship through networking, funding, mentoring and education, announced that women now comprise 50 percent its board members.
“I consider myself very fortunate to have an accomplished board made up of dedicated and seasoned executives and entrepreneurs who willingly and generously go the extra mile, time and again, to help TiE Boston pursue its mission,” said TiE Boston President Anu Chitrapu, who is the second women in TiE Boston’s more than 20-year history to lead the organization.
Ms. Chitrapu recently replaced Nilanjana Bhowmik, who completed her two-year term as TiE Boston President. Ms. Bhowmik was the first woman president of TiE Boston. TiE Boston is a member-based organization founded in 1997 by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals of Indian origin, to foster future innovators.
Operating for over 20 years, TiE Boston has a network of successful, serial entrepreneurs who are deeply engaged and committed to giving back to the community by providing mentorship, tactical advice, and expertise to rising entrepreneurs. TiE Boston creates opportunities for its members to engage founders building their startups – whether they be in high school through the TiE Young Entrepreneurs Program or as founders through ScaleUp, TiE Boston’s “Seed to Series A” tech accelerator. TiE Boston also provides access to key business connections, expertise and potential sources of capital. For those interested in pitching or investing, they can get involved in the TiE Boston Angel Group.
Today, with 12 TiE Boston Charter Members on the Board of Directors and 2 officers, TiE Boston has a breadth of expertise and knowledge to maximize the impact and reach of the organization.
TiE Boston Board members
Thomas Arul is a Serial Entrepreneur, Technologist, Investor, Blockchain Evangelist and Public Speaker with over 25 years experience based out of Boston. He has co-founded 2 successful startups and sits on multiple boards. Thomas is the Co-Founder of Bleumi Inc. Bleumi Inc, a leading Blockchain Products and Services company, launches Bleumi Pay and Bleumi Invoice to deliver seamless cross-border payments using Blockchain and Stablecoins (Cryptocurrencies). Thomas is also a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Boston Catalyst Partners (BCP). BCP invests and mentors in early stage Technology companies. Thomas was the Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Expicient Inc. Expicient specialized in Omni Channel Commerce and grew from 2 to 280 employees with over 75 top retail clients across the globe and 150 million dollars in sales since Inception. Publicis Groupe (a French multinational advertising and public relations company) acquired Expicient in 2015. Thomas has led sessions on blockchain for TiE Boston and is active in TiE Boston Angels.
Nikhil is the Founder & Managing Partner of Recon Strategy, a consulting firm that since 2010 has worked with leaders at prominent healthcare organizations on questions relating to vision and strategy. Clients include major health systems, payers, biopharma, medtech, and digital health companies. Prior to co-founding Recon, Nikhil spent 8 years at the Boston Consulting Group where he was a core member of the strategy and healthcare practice areas. Experienced in working with health plans, biotech and pharma companies, med devices and health care services, Nikhil has helped his clients innovate and execute solutions, develop strategy, make critical business decisions and plan and enable executive level and organization wide change.
Prior to BCG, Nikhil co-founded and ran media businesses in India and was a guest columnist and author. He is a graduate of St. Stephen’s College and The Wharton School. Nikhil serves as a mentor in ScaleUp and supports the TiE Digital Health Catalyst series. Read more on Nikhil in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Neeraj is Founder and CEO of Arkit Consultants LLC, a business and strategy consulting firm focused on scaling up of early stage and high growth companies, in Cloud, Blockchain, AI and Internet of Things (IoT) domains. Earlier he was Vice President of Worldwide Strategy for IBM in the Software Group. Neeraj is a seasoned Angel Investor and currently serves on the Advisory Board of ConnectM Technology Solutions, Blustream Corporation, Elemental Labs, and Alivia Analytics.
Neeraj is a game changer who is dedicated to growing revenue and scaling business operations. He has a track record of success across a range of company sizes from early stage venture backed (I-Logix) through medium size public companies (Telelogic) to $1B+ division of multinational corporation ( IBM). He has have proven excellence in Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Product Management, Business Development and P&L Management. This has enabled Neeraj to become a highly sought after consultant, advisor and mentor to high growth companies in USA, Europe , Dubai and India. He is the Chair of the TiE Boston ScaleUp Accelerator and has served as a mentor for a number of companies in the program. Read more on Neeraj Chandra in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Neil is an entrepreneur-turned-investor. After founding and building several businesses without raising traditional venture capital, he was inspired to build the kind of firm he would have wanted to partner with—one that would help build companies, rather than just place bets on them, with the voice of an experienced entrepreneur. Neil has focused on making this vision a reality as a cofounder of Romulus Capital. At Romulus, Neil leads investments in technology-enabled companies across sectors and stages. He focuses on helping founders work through critical company-building tasks, including attracting great talent, designing and building great products, acquiring first customers, and raising capital for continued growth.
Prior to Romulus, Neil advised some of the world’s largest healthcare and financial institutions at McKinsey & Company, built products that have since reached hundreds of millions of users at Zynga, founded and successfully sold a healthcare technology and services business, and established an investment firm focused on acquiring and growing B2B businesses in traditional industries. When he’s not with entrepreneurs, keeping Neil on the ground is a challenge—he is an avid scuba diver and pilot. Neil received an A.B. in Political Science from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He and his wife, Prapti, live in downtown Boston. Neil has served on the TiE Boston Awards Committee and has been a resource for the companies in ScaleUp.
Prior to joining .406, Payal was at Harvard Business School, where she co-founded a company called SpotRocket in the job recruiting software space. The company’s proprietary algorithm ranked 20,000+ global startups and provided the ability to slice and dice the data to help students identify high potential job opportunities. Prior to HBS, Payal was an Associate at Spectrum Equity, a technology growth equity investor in Boston with $7.0B under management. She sourced and executed on deals in the software, information services, data/analytics, security and internet spaces. She sourced the firm’s first investment in online gaming in a business called Jagex, based in the UK, which was acquired by Shanghai Hongtou Network Technology.
Payal started her career pursuing technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan in NYC at the height of the financial crisis. She spent most of her time in the software and financial technology spaces, and was an analyst on Xerox’s $8.3B acquisition of ACS, Visa’s $2.0B acquisition of CyberSource, and VisaNet Brazil’s $3.7B IPO. Payal received her MBA, with Distinction, from Harvard Business School and her BS in Electrical Engineering and minor in Management from MIT.Payal has served on the TiE Boston Awards Committee and has been a resource for the companies in ScaleUp. Read more on Payal in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Joseph Gentile serves as Principal at Cellero and is a senior executive with a successful record of leadership, with over 30 years of global medical device, diagnostics, and life science industry experience. Prior to joining Stemgent, Joe served as the Vice President and General Manager of both the Discovery Labware and Cell Biology business units of Becton Dickinson (BD) Biosciences, where he led business transformation, growth, and global expansion. Mr. Gentile is also a Board Advisor to Quad Technologies. Joe has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and earned his MBA from Boston University. Joe has completed advanced leadership curriculums at MIT and Harvard University. Joe has been a mentor to many companies in the ScaleUp program and is active in TiE Boston Angels. Read more on Joe in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Zack Jha is Head of Business Development; Enterprise & Industry Verticals – NE Commercial Sales at Amazon Web Services. Previously, he was the Vice President Global GTM of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) segment at PTC. A seasoned technology executive with broad expertise in developing and executing enterprise software sales, product and go-to-market strategies, he has 15+ years of PLM domain experience across Medical Device, Hi-Tech and Manufacturing industries. Zack joined PTC in 2015 from Oracle Corporation where he most recently served as Global Client Advisor to P&G’s Key IT and business stakeholders, with responsibilities including working with cross pillar teams within Oracle and across all divisions and geographies at P&G.
He previously held several leadership positions within Oracle, including Industries Business Unit, where Zack was responsible for driving growth in Oracle’s supply-chain, including PLM offerings. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering, and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA), Finance, Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago – Booth School of Business.
As Co-Founder of Care.com, Zenobia was part of the leadership team that built Care.com from vision to IPO – becoming the world’s largest online marketplace that matches families and caregivers. She was responsible for growing the Company’s global footprint, as well as the full scope of consumer marketing, customer engagement and product marketing across both the company’s consumer and B2B businesses. She also served as GM with P&L ownership for the International and Homepay businesses lines. In the four years prior to co-founding Care.com, Zenobia worked as a Senior Product & Marketing Manager for Upromise, where she helped families prepare and save for college. From 1998-2001, she served as Senior Product Manager at financial software startup, WorldStreet.
Recognized as one of the “40 under 40” from Boston Business Journal, a “Pinnacle Award Emerging Executive” by The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and recipient of the “Asper Alumni Entrepreneurship Award” from Brandeis University and “Business & Entrepreneurship Award” at the India New England Choice Award, Zenobia holds an MA from Brandeis University and a B.A. from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. She is a mom of two, enabling her to fully appreciate the care challenges facing today’s families and caregivers. Zenobia has served as the curriculum lead, instructor and mentor to the companies in ScaleUp, organized events for TiE Boston Women and has participated as a speaker in our TiE Young Entrepreneurs program. Read more on Zenobia in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Sangeeta Moorjani is Head of Workplace Managed Accounts for Fidelity Financial Services, a diversified financial services firm. She is a seasoned executive with 20+ years of business strategy, product management and marketing success in the financial services industry. Her expertise is in retail and institutional businesses, retirement, asset management, and high net worth markets.
Sangeeta is a strategic leader and has a passion for coaching and developing high performing teams. She serves as an advisor to the Women’s Leadership Group and the Asian Employee Group at Fidelity. She is active in local charities and youth activities. She has served on the Andover Public School Steering Committee to develop a 5-year roadmap; and is passionate about imbibing Indian culture and values in youth and has taught courses on the same.
As Director of Alumni Engagement, Thara pilots programs and extends the reach of the Harvard Innovation Labs – both to provide ongoing support to Harvard Innovation Labs’ alumni ventures, and to bring together Harvard’s greater, global community of alumni entrepreneurs. Thara is a veteran marketing and business development professional who has mentored and advised early-stage ventures in Boston and beyond. She is a Board Member at TiE Boston, a mentor at Founder Institute, and the founder of a networking and mentoring group for female entrepreneurs, RebelWomen.
Over the past three years, she held roles at Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship, overseeing programs to support alumni founders, from building community to developing programs to advance their ventures. Thara holds an MBA from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, a Master’s in Journalism from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Broadcasting from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Read more on Thara in TiE Boston’s Meet a Member!
Darshana Zaveri is a Managing Partner of Catalyst Health Ventures. Darshana is actively involved in all aspects of Fund Management including Investments and Capital Raising. She led Catalyst’s investments in Augmenix (Acquired by Boston Scientific, NYSE: BSX), Lantos Technologies, nVision Medical (Acquired by Boston Scientific, NYSE: BSX), Maxwell Health (Acquired by Sun Life Financial, NYSE: SLF), and Aria CV. She currently represents Catalyst on the Boards of Lantos (past Chair), Aria CV (Chair) and Atacor Medical, while previously serving on the boards of nVision, Augmenix, and Maxwell Health. She was also actively involved with portfolio company Allegro Diagnostics, Inc. (acquired by Veracyte, NASDAQ: VCT). Darshana brings to Catalyst over a decade of experience in the health care and Life Science Industries. Prior to Catalyst, she was an Investigator at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and an integral part of the drug development programs in oncology, metabolic disease, and immunology. Previously she worked at Genome Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and completed an internship at the United Nations. She has authored several publications and scientific journal articles and currently serves as a Catalyst of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT.
Darshana received an MPA from Harvard University, a Master in Cell and Molecular Biology from Boston University, and a BS in Biochemistry from Bombay University in Bombay, India. Darshana has served on the TiE Boston Awards Committee and has been a resource for the companies in ScaleUp
Officers:
Asha Dixit – Treasurer, TiE Boston
Asha has over 25 years of experience in public accounting serving clients in manufacturing, biotech, hi-tech, construction, health services, real estate, retail, food & hospitality, non-profits, and professional service firms. Asha advises corporations and individuals on issues related to international taxation, new ventures, acquisitions, and growth strategies. She frequently represents clients during IRS and state government audits.
Prior to joining Shah, Dixit & Associates in 2004, Asha worked for several years with regional and national accounting firms including LitmanGerson Associates and Reznick Group. Asha holds an MBA and MS in Computer Information Systems from the Southern New Hampshire University and B.Com.(Honors) from Osmania University, India.
Emily Ladd-Kravitz – Clerk, TiE Boston
Emily Ladd-Kravitz is a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig and focuses her practice on complex corporate transactions and representation of private companies in all stages of their life cycle.
She represents venture capital funds, private equity firms, other institutional investors and companies in connection with a wide variety of corporate and transactional matters, including mergers and acquisitions, private placements, minority investments, venture capital financings and corporate governance matters. She also advises start-up and growth-stage companies in all industries, including, technology, edtech, medical device, clean energy, sustainable solutions and life sciences.
TiE Boston’s Executive Director, Simone LaPray, oversees the operations and programs, while Jenna Bergquist manages membership and benefits.
TiE is the world’s largest not-for-profit network dedicated to helping startups grow. In 25 years the TiE Network has reached 12,000 members across 14 countries and contributed to $250B in wealth creation. TiE Chapters around the world have become a vibrant platform for entrepreneurs, professionals, industry leaders, and investors to interact with one another & forge long-lasting relationships.
To learn more about TiE Boston, please visit www.tieboston.org.
