Kamesh Sundaram

Director, OpenText & Chapter Chair, STeP-IN-Bangalore

President & CEO, Prakat Solutions

Anuradha is the President & CEO of Prakat Solutions, a company she founded along with a few fellow Software Industry veterans in December 2009. Prakat Solutions specializes in end to end engineering solutions including - Product Engineering, Test Engineering, Accessibility Engineering & Application Modernization.

Prior to this, she worked with global organizations like Verifone, Cybercash, CA and Aztecsoft (acquired by MindTree) & Infosys. She was instrumental in building the Software Testing business ground up at CA & Aztec. At Infosys, she was part of the leadership who grew a strong Business unit in Independent Software validation from concept to over 8000 people & 450 million USD. She has extensive experience in organization building, service portfolio creation, business planning, enabling the sales force, global service delivery teams & skills development etc.

Under her leadership, Prakat was named in the SI-1OO list of the top 100 Indian owned technology companies by Silicon India in 2010 & was the winner of the Best Startup in the Services category at StartupCity 2010. With its primary Engineering centre in Bengaluru, India, Prakat is headquartered in Fort Worth and has offices in New York & Denver. The teams she built has strong domain competencies in FinTech, AgriTech, EduTech, Telecom, Retail, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Legal and IT Infrastructure.

Padmanabhan Venkatesan

Harman Connected Services & Chapter Vice-Chair, STeP-IN Bangalore

Padmanabhan V (Paddy) is a senior business leader who has built & managed several successful verticals business units globally enabling customers realize their technology & digital transformation vision. An engineer at heart Paddy has successfully applied his technology & domain expertise in building IP & solutions that has helped industries solve several of its key challenges and accelerated business growth. Paddy has worked across several verticals and industry domains such as Media , Entertainment , Hi-tech , Energy , Industrial focusing on Digital transformation , IOT , Digital marketing , Direct to consumer ecommerce platforms & Targeted recommendation engines. Paddy is currently heading the Energy , Industrial & Retail business unit at Harman connected services. In his current portfolio he is driving several smart city , smart grid & meters , connected cars , Home automation , Smart security & Industrial IOT programs that enables customers to build and launch real time data driven globally connected platforms delivering direct consumer engagement.

Kannappan Ravi

VP, Happiest Minds & STeP-IN EC Member – Bangalore Chapter

A High energy passionate-well informed professional with 29 years of IT Experience with Embedded Product Engineering, Software development, Software Products / Applications, Information Security, Quality Engineering & Test Automation. Holds Bachelor degree in EEE from Sri Jaya Chamarajendra College of Engineering ,Mysore University & executive MBA –IIMB (Indian Institute of Management Bangalore)

Area of Expertise: a) Currently Responsible – Quality Engineering & Assurance services, globally and focused on Analytics, Big Data, Cloud, Mobility, Application Security, Information Security and Internet of Things. Development of Integrated Next Gen Automation frameworks, Innovative Open source Test Accelerators, Agile Solutions in Test Driven Development, Continuous Integration, Integrated Technology Transformational COEs. b) Earlier completed 25 years of Valuable experience with Wipro, had handled several leadership roles, in areas of High Availability Product Solutions Delivery Management, Test Automation, Program Management, Business Development, offering Product Engineering services for US, UK, Germany, Ireland, Japan and Apac. c) Handled multiple Accounts as Global Delivery Head, Received Customer delight levels ratings on Customer Satisfaction, Customer Experience Index, and Net Promoter Score consistently across Global Clients. d) Handled Enterprise Risk Management in Information Security, Enterprise Risk and Cyber security. e) Certified Six Sigma Green Belt: executed projects, successfully delivered Multiple High Quality Products with High Availability quality Releases, Increased the Quality of Deliverables & Test Effectiveness.

Laurels & Awards: a) Won – Bell Northern Research President & CEO Canada award in 1997and 3 times Wipro President’s awards in 1993, 1996 and 2004. b) 2006: Business Excellence Award awarded by SVP Mr. Subramanyam of the Telecom Solutions Business. c) 2004: Telecom Excellence Award ‘Front Runner ’ in Optical BU, awarded by Dr A.L. Rao, President Telecom. d) 1999: Nortel Service Excellence Award from Mr. Peter Benedek, VP R&D Nortel, and Mr. Ramesh Emani, President Telecom Solutions –Wipro Technologies. e) 1997: Nortel Certificate of Merit Award from Mr. Greg Mumford, President and CEO of Broadband, Bell- Northern Research. Globally the first non-BNR employee to win this award. f) 1997:“Ambassador of Wipro“award from Mr .Diju Raha President Nortel R&D Outsourcing. g) 1996: ‘Winning Wipro Systems’ award from Mr. V Chandrasekaran, President Wipro Systems. h) 1995 : “ Delivery Excellence – USD 1000 award for contributions to OC48 /OC12 Automation i) 1993: Excellence award for innovation in the project from Wipro R&D Head.

Contributions to Non Profit Organizations, Thought Leadership in building Next Gen Technology Community: a) Jury and Panel member for the EMC 2014: Cybersecurity and Proactive Risk Management. b) Technical Advisory Board Member & Speaker VTU 2014: Harnessing SMAC Technology Skills for employability. c) Innovation Panel member for the Horizon 2020 Emerging Technology Initiatives from European Universities. d) Developed Tech Papers on Next Gen FAST DATA, Next Gen Digital Telecom and FAST Automation. e) Jury and Advisory Board member for QAI- STC 2015, 14 & 13 International Software Testing Conferences. f) Keynote Speaker –Unicom summit -2015 Topic: Enter the future era of FAST DATA and FAST Automation. g) Keynote Speaker: Step-Auto 2015: Topic Design thinking and Critical thinking. How to be Quality Ambassadors for Creating the Next Gen Customer Experience and Business Efficiency. h) Keynote Speaker for QAI STC 2014: New Paradigm Shift -Decoding the needs & Skills in Disruptive Technologies. i) Keynote Speaker, Business Excellence 2014. Emerging needs, trends in building the Nextgen Global Enterprises. j) Program Chair & Panel member for ISQT 2014 : Business Value and Quality Engineering k) Speaker and Panel – Step-In 2014: The Paradigm Shift -Decoding the new Imperatives for the next gen Global CXOs. l) Chief Guest and speaker on KLE University 2014: TQM applied in education effectiveness with Nextgen Technologies. m) Invited Speaker: CXO Round table by Microsoft / QSIT 2013. The Team approach – Agile & Continuous Integration.

Mohan Babu Nellore

Director, Visa Inc & STeP-IN EC Member – Bangalore Chapter

Mohan Nellore is a seasoned technology leader in the software industry at various capacities of quality engineering. Based in Bengaluru, currently works with Visa as Director of Test Engineering. Prior to this role, he worked at product development companies like eBay, Yahoo! and Dell in his professional career spanning over 15 years. Mohan has a strong expertise in internet, e-commerce and online payment domains while skills include a whole stack of open source technologies. He is well known for evangelizing processes that result in transformational changes across the organization.

Holds a Master’s degree in Software Engineering from BITS, Pilani and a bachelor’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Bangalore University. Also, Mohan has a long association with STeP-In Forum in the past through some of the flagship summit plenary talks.

LinkedIn profile can be found at – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohanbn

Sriraman Chakravarthy

Founder And Director, Metamorphic Networks P Ltd & STeP-IN EC Member – Bangalore Chapter

Sriraman Chakravarthy ex Director from Cisco , Founder & Director of a start up Metamorphic Networks P Ltd developing software solutions for Connected living with IOT / Cloud / Mobile infrastructure has over 30+ Years of experience on software development and Managing Global R&D Centres.

He comes with Thirty plus years experience on cutting edge technologies, with proven experience in developing and commercializing technologies and products in Pay TV, STB, Cloud, Betting Games solution, CTI, Telecom, Wireless Technologies, Computer Networking & Network Management systems, DSP – Audio processing ,Device Driver and special Solutions for many Global customers.

Sriraman is a Graduate in Physics and a Graduate in Engineering (Electronics and Communications) is also a Master in Business administration (Software Systems). He is also a Certified Board of Directors from Institute of Directors and Certified Scrum Master and Certified Product Owner from Scrum Alliance. He is also a Sahithya Sironmani in Sanskrit Language. He is also active member in IEEE and also Professor at Dayananda Sagar University mentoring budding entrepreneurs.

He is married and has a daughter doing her MBBS (Medicine). His hobbies includes Music, Teaching and Mentoring students and budding entrepreneurs.

Kavitha Kadambi

General Manager, Wipro & STeP-IN EC Member – Bangalore Chapter

Kavitha Kadambi is General Manager, Strategic Programs at the CIO Office, Wipro. In this role, Kavitha runs large programs such as to adopt current best in class technologies to transform the Wipro landscape across infrastructure and applications and thus drive Go To Market solutions.

Prior to joining Wipro in 2015, she was with OnMobile Global, where she played various roles. Kavitha was instrumental in setting up Information Systems which was crucial in scaling the organization across geographies, customers and product lines. She also headed the Data Products Unit for emerging markets, and had overall responsibility for product evolution, delivery and operations. She joined OnMobile as Head of Program Management and was responsible for all delivery across customers.

Kavitha was with Infosys till 2006. In her last role as Group Program Manager, she anchored critical global programs across multiple customers in the telecom domain.

Kavitha has a Masters degree in Communications & Software Engg from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and a Bachelor in Engg from BMS College, Bangalore. She is passionate about technology led scale and transformation.

Poonam Jain

Manager, Tieto Software Technologies Limited

Poonam Jain, Manager, Tieto Software Technologies Limited is leading the Testing Process CoE where her responsibilities involve consulting, defining, optimizing, implementing efficient and effective testing processes, software measurement and process improvement programs within Tieto and Client organisations.

Prior to joining Tieto, she has held a variety of roles at Capgemini India latest being Testing Transformation Leader where her consulting engagements focused on helping international clients implement and improve quality, productivity and measurement processes using DevOps, Agile and Lean principles.

She has over 15 years of professional experience in Programme, Project Management and Consulting Client organizations in software measurement, benchmarking software productivity, development methodologies and process improvement using Lean /Agile Principles. She is also an international consultant and instructor in the areas of estimation, lean ,agile.

She has received her Commerce degree in Marketing from Pune University, a Computer Engineer degree from NIIT Pune and Diploma in Business Management from All India Institute of Management Studies.

She is Associate Certified Coach from International Coach Federation, SAFe Agilist , Agile Coach ,Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Certified Internal Auditor ISO 9001:2008 by DNV and Cosmic Function Points Entry Level Certificate Holder.

She is associated closely with Cosmicon and involved in the review of estimation guidelines. She is also an active member of TMMi Foundation and part of the Review and Author Panel for TMMi & Agile.

Rahul Vishwaroop

Senior Quality Engineering Manager at Adobe

Senior Quality Engineering Manager at Adobe

As the Lead Quality Manager for Adobe InDesign, he is responsible for ensuring timely and quality release for this flagship desktop and digital publishing product. The team is distributed across India, US, Japan and China. In collaboration with a team of managers, he oversee the progress of the product and have devised measures to quantitatively monitor progress and success. We have formulated processes that have helped testing become agile and optimal.

Link: www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-vishwaroop-9052b4

Aashu Chandra

Director and Head - Testing Services at Infogain

Experience of setting up Testing COE - Vast experience of managing delivery of dual shore testing projects (both manual and automated) testing - Laying down the framework of Testing COE so as to help in the following: a) Streamlining the testing process b) Evaluating and building automation frameworks on latest testing tools and technologies c) Mentor and provide training to the testing professionals Specialities: - Building test automation frameworks for reducing automation cost/effort - Implementing best practices of testing with respect to tools, technologies and processes in testing domain. - Mentoring and career development of testing resources

Link: https://in.linkedin.com/in/aashuchandra

Yogita Sahoo

Vice President, Testing at Mindfire Solutions

Yogita currently leads the Testing business unit at Mindfire Solutions, India. In this role she focuses at business growth as well as managing some of their largest and strategic client accounts. She has more than 15 years of professional experience primarily in software testing and she constantly guides her testing team to acquire new skills and technically challenging projects. Her passion for testing has made her contribute to the international QA community through various articles and presentations. She actively participates in initiatives that aim to bring about changes in the Indian testing scenario.

Link: https://in.linkedin.com/pub/yogita-sahoo/40/515/6b8

N.K. Garg

VP & Head Quality at R Systems

Have a proven track record & rich experience of over 25 years in IT Industry including successful role-playing for more than 13 years, at Senior Management positions, handling clients globally. Have been instrumental in getting world class quality certifications for R Systems like ISO 9001:2008, ISO 27001, CMMI Level 5 & PCCM Level 5. Process maturity have helped organization in customer retention & getting repeat business.

Akash Sood

Group Testing Services Business Development and Industrialisation Support Manager at Steria

Akash has an overall industry experience of 17+ years where he has worked in development / maintenance and testing assignments. He has worked in varied domains across Manufacturing (Steel), Cost Accounting, Banking, Healthcare (HIPAA), Insurance, Mortgages & Reverse Mortgages, Retail & Logistics and Hospitality. He has versatile global delivery experience and customer management acumen in QA / Testing including experience in areas of business analysis, consulting, software development, Quality Assurance, and Testing.

Link: https://in.linkedin.com/in/akash-sood-1704426

Avneesh Kumar Agarwal

SIT(System Integration Test) Senior Manager at Aristocrat

A seasoned IT Professional, having over 17+ years of rich and successful track record, involved in Management/Leadership of Projects for QA/Testing/Professional services for multiple verticals and domains, product automation, building test strategies, testing in Agile model

Link: https://in.linkedin.com/in/avneesh-kumar-agarwal-a2008857

Avinash Kumar Gupta

Senior Quality Engineering Manager at Adobe

Manager [DevOps / Site Reliability Engineering ] a) Building a team of bright devops / site reliability engineers and directly managing it b) This team is taking care of all digital marketing solutions like Analytics, AEM, Target, Social, Connect. c) Objective is to ensure reliable, performant services with minimal possible downtime. d) Currently hiring. Looking for engineers with experience of handling large hosted services solutions. For details, see above in the Summary section. Also, in the second level managerial role, have been handling the quality engineering for multiple products and customer support team for an enterprise product. Manager Quality Engineering [Connect, Campaign] e) As a second level manager, managing the quality engineering for Adobe Connect. It provides the meeting, webinar and learning capabilities to its customers. f) As a second level manager, managing quality for Adobe Campaign - an industry leader in cross-channel campaign management

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avinash-gupta-836532

Satish Pradhan

Head-Software Quality Assurance @ HomeShop18

Satish is a Test Engineering Manager, Agile Evangelist, Design Thinker, and Cloud Transformation Consultant with 15 years of diverse experience in brining products to market. He is passionate about solving market and business problems by conceptualizing and building user-centric products that delight customers while helping PEOPLE (individuals, teams and organizations) to realize their true potential. He has excellent professional track record and niche skill set ranging from Product Innovation & Systems Thinking, User Experience Design & New Product Development, Lean Start-ups & Agile Organizations. Published couple of technical papers in international conferences & events. At Present working as Head of Software Quality with Homeshop18(E-commerce). In past worked with companies like Kronos, Pitney Bowes, Wipro, SIEMENS, British Telecom-UK and Lumenare Networks-USA. He holds master’s degree in computers from NIT, Allahabad (formally REC). Satish enjoys playing Golf & Squash.

Link: https://in.linkedin.com/in/satishpradhan