Actively involved in establishing the strategic direction of Gray Ghost’s impact-oriented venture capital investing, Brian currently leads the firm's analysis, evaluation, execution and governance of venture capital investment opportunities. He manages a varied portfolio and has sourced, executed and/or performed governance roles for the following investments: MicroPlace (2006 – eBay); RentBureau (2006 – Experian); paraLife (2006); United Villages (2007); CellBazaar (2007 – Telenor); d.light (2007); SourceTrace (2007); BEAM (2008), Emergence BioEnergy (2008), iSend (2009), Movirtu (2009), mDhil (2009), PharmaSecure (2009), bKash (2010), and M-Kopa (2011).

In addition to his corporate board service, Brian serves on the boards of local nonprofit organizations, and facilitates a financial management workshop for at-risk homeless families in the Atlanta area. Brian graduated Summa cum Laude from the University of Georgia’s Honors Program, and earned an MBA in Finance from Georgia State University. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Brian speaks Russian proficiently. Brian resides in Decatur, Georgia, with his forgiving wife, lovely son and daughter, and unruly German Shepherd dog.

Retired as General Manager of NABARD in February, 2011 and since then have been engaged as a Consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India for implementation of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. Also extending consultancy services to NABARD and NGO Sector.

During the tenure with NABARD, was actively involved in promoting rural non-farm sector activities and the SHG-Banks linkage programme across the states and had been on the Boards of Mandla-Balaghat RRB and Rajgarh-Sehore RRBs in Madhya Pradesh. Had been Guest Faculty in a number of Management Institutions in Delhi and Mumbai on Rural Management. Set up and administered the Rural innovation Fund (RIF) in NABARD and during the tenure, funded over 350 innovative ventures across all the States. Was also instrumental in shaping the Solar Lighting Subsidy Scheme(decentralized applications) of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.

Siddharth Tata joined Acumen in September 2010 to further develop the Agriculture Portfolio in India. In his last role at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Siddharth worked with non-profit organizations to help build programs in the areas of dairy development, watershed management, and creating market linkages to improve incomes of farmers in India. Previously, as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company’s Mumbai office, he advised clients in the retail, IT, and financial services industries. He has also assisted a Mumbai-based investment firm on its agriculture investment strategy and helped launch a turnaround program for coffee washing stations in Rwanda as a volunteer consultant with TechnoServe. Siddharth has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, where he was awarded the Shankar Dayal Sharma prize for excellence.

Ajay Maniar is responsible for scouting deals and investment due diligence. Prior to joining Aavishkaar, Ajay has worked with rating agencies & banks and has taken diverse roles within risk domain. Ajay started his career with CARE where he was involved in undertaking credit rating assignments on mid/large sized Indian Corporates. Thereafter he moved to Citibank, where he undertook diverse roles in credit risk, early warning and portfolio management for the Local Commercial Banking business. For his last assignment at Citi, Ajay was closely involved in setting up offshore unit for supporting internal risk teams in North America and Western Europe. He is a chemical engineer from UDCT, Mumbai and has a Masters in Management studies from JBIMS, Mumbai.

Jinesh has a background in fund management, in addition to his experience working with Indian startups on operational and financial issues. Prior to co-founding Omnivore Capital, he served as CFO and Vice President at Nexus Venture Partners, a leading Indian early-stage venture capital firm. Earlier, he worked as AGM (Finance) at Datamatics, where he was responsible for M&A, Treasury and MIS functions. Jinesh has also worked as a Finance Manager at Patni Computers, where he served as Finance team leader for Patni’s IPO, and at HCL Technologies. Jinesh is a Chartered Accountant (ICAI) and holds an MMS (Finance) degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

Aditya portfolio companies include Seclore, a document security solutions provider, Mobien, an enterprise mobility solutions provider; Lattice Bridge, a voice recognition technology solutions provider; and Vortex, a manufacturer of low cost rural ATMs.

Aditya works closely with portfolio companies, using his operational skills and network to add value post investment. He has helped portfolio companies in developing investment memorandums and other related activities for raising follow-on funding.He also guides companies in their marketing and pricing activities. In the case of one opportunity which eventually did not materialize, Aditya had built the entire cost model, and helped the promoters put the cost structure in place.

Beau has been highly involved in the social enterprise and impact investing space for the last four years. As a Principal at Montara Point Investments, he worked with Geoff Woolley in connection with his global investment and management responsibilities related to venture leasing, microfinance, and impact investing. Immediately prior to the launch of Unitus Impact, Beau was a Principal at Capital Impact, where he worked extensively on the Sorenson Housing Opportunity Fund, a private equity fund focused on developing India’s affordable housing ecosystem, and spent significant time in China working on multiple projects and leading Capital Impact’s outreach in the PRC. He actively monitors Unitus Impact’s investment in Micro Benefits, and is on the board of UI portfolio Companies Kinara Capital (India) and PT Ruma (Indonesia).

Beau is co-chair of the Impact Investing Initiative at Brigham Young University’s Ballard Center for Economic Self-Reliance, an advisor to the University Impact Fund, a mentor in the Springworks Scholars program, and an educational advisor to the E3 Innovation Fund. Beau holds a JD / MBA-Finance and B.S. in Psychology from Brigham Young University.

Prior to LGT VP, Govind has experiences of advising social enterprises and micro finance institutions in capital raising and strategy at Unitus Capital and Financial Strategy Group in Citigroup where Govind has transactional experience across M&A's, IPO's and corporate finance strategy across Asia Pacific. Govind holds a bachelor’s degree from Bombay University and is a Chartered Accountant.

Mr. P.B. Ganesh is the Director of Corporate Banking at RABO Bank India, where he focuses on businesses in the global food and agribusiness value chain. Mr. Ganesh started his career in Agrochemicals Sales & Marketing with Rallis India Limited in 1997, and later moved to work with Godrej Agrovet Limited. In 2001, he switched to the banking sector and worked with ICICI Limited in its Agri Business Banking division, handling a development finance program for food processing projects.

Mr. Ganesh has a Masters in Agricultural Microbiology from IARI and a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad.

Mr. P.V. Ramachandran is the General Manager of the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD). Previously Mr. Ramachandran spent 7 years with the Fiscal Policy Cell of the Ministry of Finance in the Indian government. He was also with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in Anand as an Executive in Planning. While with NDDB, Mr. Ramachandran engaged in planning for Operation Flood-II and Oilseeds Development Projects in different states. In 1986, Mr. Ramachandran joined NABARD, where as General Manager of the Development Policy Department (Non-Farm Sector), he administers the Rural Innovation Fund (RIF), oversees policy formulation and guidance for promotional schemes for the rural non-farm sector. He is also actively associated with NABARD’s Micro Credit Initiatives as well as the funding of renewable energy sources.

Mr. Ramachandran has a Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).

Tripat has 15 years of experience in founding, funding and supporting early stage businesses. He has been passionately supporting more than a dozen entrepreneurs through mentoring and angel investing. Till recently, he was working as a senior associate with NEA-IndoUS Ventures, and focused on opportunities in Clean-tech, Education, Healthcare, Consumer Services, Retail, Manufacturing and Internet Services. Earlier, he co-founded a boutique i-bank firm and an ICICI venture funded sourcing services company in 2000. Tripat is a Chartered Accountant and an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi. He also completed a course in venture capital and entrepreneurship from the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad.

Satish has  a total industry experience of more than ten years in various domains, including public relations, brand management, fund raising and PE/VC Investment management - Satish has always been keen to assist start-ups. Besides mentoring few start-ups, he is also an active panel member with institutions such as NEN and often addresses various platforms on the subject of entrepreneurism. Understanding the challenges the conventional funding structure has in India, he actively pursues evolving funding mechanisms globally and hence institutionalised Springboard Ventures - with an objective of 're-defining' the start-up support infrastructure and drive entrepreneurs to success.

Springboard Ventures endeavours to engage and bring-together various entities  not only start-ups, but investors, experts, policy-makers, other service-providers  to together work towards promoting entrepreneurism. They are also the official partners of GrowVC in India. Grow Venture Community (GrowVC) - the Virtual Silicon Valley, bringing the first truly global, transparent, community-based approach to seed-funding through crowd-funding.