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Richard Garnick

Richard Garnick

Founder Managing Partner

Rich has over 35 years of experience in Global Technology business leadership. At ConJoin, Rich has executed a number of transactions, architecting a complex transaction to acquire a sector leading independent Healthcare Provider focused IT/Revenue Cycle Management firm PHNS (Rebranded Anthelio Healthcare) with a global Private Equity Group – Actis out of UK, India and Singapore. The transaction included carving out and selling ConJoin’s offshore operating platform to facilitate the transaction. The transaction was valued at over $250M and had over 4,000 dedicated professionals at the time of acquisition.

Rich served as Chairman and CEO of Anthelio. The company achieved a positive outcome for investors; being sold to a strategic acquirer in 2017.

Rich is also known for fundamentally altering the competitive landscape in the $800B IT & BPO Services industry by leveraging a Global Delivery Model during his leadership at Wipro Technologies as Chief Executive Americas & EAS. His leadership has been largely credited with redesigning and executing a fundamentally different Go-To-Market and selling approach and process, resulting in growing the business at over 75% CAGR representing over 70% of Wipro's revenue globally. He also had responsibility for the EAS business unit growing it from a small $8M practice with 200 people to over $250M annually and over 3,000 people globally.

Prior to Wipro Rich served as a business leader innovating and growing units at leading companies such as Texas Instruments, Arrow Electronics and Avent. Rich currently serves and has served on the boards of some innovative technology companies and industry association boards such as ITAA.

Rich has a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce & Engineering from Drexel University and also holders a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Finance) from Loyola University, Baltimore.

Richard Garnick

David Folk

Partner

David is a passionate serial entrepreneur, venture capital investor, and philanthropist. He co-founded two venture capital firms since he began his career in 1984 and backed over 50 entrepreneurial companies throughout North America with over $500 million in capital focusing on innovation and technology.

David is a founding member of the Task Force on Competitiveness and Prosperity (2001), and past Chair of Kids Help Phone, one of Canada’s leading charities (1997-2000). He has been a director, advisor, strategist, and coach for dozens of successful public and private companies. He is the co-founder and CEO of NEXT Integrative Minds Life Sciences, a company that provides adaptive solutions to personal and interpersonal challenges and opportunities using breakthrough technologies in neuroscience and human dynamics.

David is a graduate of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Richard Garnick

Jayraj Chheda

Partner CEO & CFO

Jayraj has over 23 years of experience in operations, global finance and accounting, the transition of accounting and financial processes, helping enterprises improve profitability, customer satisfaction, and competitive advantage in a broad range of markets, including telecommunications, manufacturing, accounting, and capital markets.

Jayraj is responsible for finance, strategic direction and driving operational excellence at Conjoin and is placed as CFO and COO of the company. In addition he works as a CFO and CEO of Avotus Corporation, CFO of Next Integrative Minds Life Sciences Ltd.

Prior to current roles, he worked for State Street Syntel Sourcing Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of the world’s second-largest custodian State Street Bank and was managing assets under management of over $100 billion for US-based pension funds, RSM McGladrey FPO India, one of the largest accounting firms in the USA, and several other organizations in various managerial roles.

Jayraj is a certified Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Rohan Sheth

Rohan Sheth

Director - Business Development
& Service Delivery

As a results-driven leader with over 22 years of experience, Rohan Sheth has been instrumental in driving service excellence and customer success. Since joining Avotus in 2008, he has led the Service Delivery Team, ensuring that clients receive proactive, high-quality support tailored to their evolving business needs. His leadership has played a key role in enhancing customer retention, optimizing service operations, and fostering long-term client relationships.

Prior to Avotus, Rohan held various key positions at Zenith Infotech and Stream International, where he specialized in Remote Infrastructure Management and service delivery. His work with Microsoft Games and Gateway Computers showcased his ability to design and implement scalable support models that drive efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Rohan holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Mumbai University (1999) and an MBA from ICFAI. He has continuously expanded his expertise through industry certifications and specialized training programs focused on service strategy, process optimization, and customer engagement.

As a key member of the Avotus leadership team, Rohan remains committed to innovation, operational excellence, and delivering transformative service experiences that set industry benchmarks.

Richard Garnick

Amit Srivastava

Director - Global Managed Services

Amit has more than 20 years of experience handling Global Operations, Project Management, Client Servicing, and Team Management. Amit is responsible for delivery, product development, maintaining and renewing existing contracts, and driving sales initiatives with existing and new logos. He effectively manages risks and assesses opportunities for continuous improvement. He drives operational excellence by delivering best-in-class service to our ever-growing customer base.

Amit holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and is a Postgraduate in Management.
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

Vikram Gulati

Vikram Gulati

Strategic Advisor

Vikram is an experienced operating executive with over 30 years of management, acquisitions, integration and corporate carve-out experience in the IT Services industry.

Till recently, Vikram was the CEO of MFX Services, a leading P&C insurance digital transformation partner. Here he orchestrated the turnaround and above industry growth for the company and built deep and analyst acknowledged differentiation and solutions. He was also the President of the Global Technology Solutions business at Quess Corp, one of India’s leading business service providers. Vikram led a 10,000+ team spread across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, India and Far East Asia.

From August 2011 to October 2014, Vikram was the founding CEO and Managing Director for Happiest Minds, a next generation IT services company. He helped Happiest Minds grow to 1,200 employees, 80+ customers and revenue of $45M over a 3 year period.

From April 2005 to July 2011, Vikram was the CEO & President of Intelligroup Inc., a NASDAQ listed IT services company. At Intelligroup, he was responsible for creating and executing a turnaround strategy that resulted in a fivefold appreciation of the company's valuation before it was acquired by NTT Data.

From April 2000 to March 2005, Vikram served as the head of Wipro’s Global Enterprise Application Solutions (EAS) business, where he was responsible for growing it from $20M to $160M in revenue over a 5 year period and was a part of the senior leadership team.

Kalyan Mahalingam

Kalyan Sundaram Mahalingam

Strategic Advisor

Kalyan is a proven global business leader with over 27 years of experience in the IT industry in building and turning around global organizations. He has in-depth knowledge in M&As of companies, business and operational integration of the entities across geographies.

Most recently, as COO with MFX Services – A Fairfax Company until March 2019, he was responsible for the Application business unit and successfully built the business in new regions across India, Far East and Africa. He built the India centre and led the globalization of operations resulting in significant improvements in operational and margin efficiencies.

As a Strategic advisor, until Dec 2014, he advised multinational organizations on build / acquire strategy for their India geography. During this period he helped two companies build their India presence through acquisition.

As the COO of Intelligroup Inc. (Currently NTT Data Inc.) until Sep 2013, he led the global business operations of the company which includes the Global Practice and Delivery organization, with large global teams of 3500+ resources. As part of the core team, devised and executed a turnaround strategy leading to a multifold improvement in the valuation of the company at the time of eventual sale to NTT Data. He was part of Integration PMO for NTT Data Americas (including India) and NTT Data Europe, and played a key role in global integration of the new entity for NTT Data.

As SVP of EAS business of Keane Inc. (currently NTT Data) until Feb 2017, played a key role in creation of global practice and operations for Keane.

With Wipro Technologies from 1993 to 2006, he was the General Manager of the business and played a key role in growing the business from 200 to 3500 resources globally. Prior to that, he was part of EAS Business and played various roles in Practice, Competency Building, Client Management and Delivery and was part of the team which lead the growth of the business unit. Prior to 1997, he handled various finance functional roles.

Kalyan is a certified Chartered Accountant, Management and Finance from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Deb Sambuddha

Deb Sambuddha

Strategic Advisor

With over 30 years of experience in the Global Technology industry, Sambuddha is a thought leader in the operational execution of the global delivery of software development, technology infrastructure, and business process outsourcing (BPO) for Wipro Technologies (NYSE-WIT) and is viewed globally as a true thought leader and innovator in applying technology – (e-enabling & digital transformation, quality processes such as CMM, Six-Sigma, LEAN and more). Serving in an array of leadership roles over his extensive career, Sambuddha led the organization from the genesis to a global operation of over 150,000 employees.

Recent Specific Functional roles:

  • Chief Global Delivery Officer of Wipro leading Wipro's Delivery, Productivity and Knowledge Management initiatives. Responsible for ensuring successful delivery of all projects with world class customer experience, creating a competent global work force suitable for new generation engagements. Responsible for growing non-linear business models across Wipro.
  • Held various positions in Wipro, notably – Chief Executive – Corporate Vertical, Chief Executive – Manufacturing Vertical, Chief Quality Officer for Wipro Corporation.

He has been instrumental in the launch of the system integration business for Wipro in India, creating the corporate and manufacturing verticals, launching the Quality Consulting business, launching the Knowledge Management movement in Wipro and launching of Lean Techniques in software. Instrumental in leading Wipro through the PCMM Level 5 certification and the CMMi Level 5 certification. Sambuddha has successfully led the integration of Six Sigma into software development processes at Wipro and also broad-basing Six Sigma application to different functional processes across Wipro Technologies. Wipro has also been the ASIAN MAKE finalist for Best Knowledge Management for the last 4 years.

He has been the keynote speaker in International forums like IQPC, Gartner, Fabtech, World Data Mining Conference 2007 and International Association Product Developers symposium 2006. He was invited as a speaker for JPMC's Lab Morgan Speaker series. He has been a guest speaker at Marshall School of Management, USC, Stern Business School, NYU, Harvard Business School and Indian Institutes of Management, Ahmedabad and Bangalore.