Mr Anirudha Chakravarty is Sr. Manager – Continuous Improvement and Best Business Practices (CIBBP) at Johnson Controls (India) Pvt. Ltd., a Fortune 300 MNC that deals in HVAC, Industrial Refrigeration, Building Management, Security, Fire Alarm and Access Control Systems. His primary role is to drive excellence in all processes that impact customer satisfaction, operational costs and internal efficiencies, providing value to the bottom-line at the same time.

He has previously served with Qimpro Consultants as a Principal Consultant for three years. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and has offered training and facilitation services to companies in the metallurgical, engineering, power generation and service sectors. Mr Chakravarty was a key faculty member for Six Sigma Black Belt, Six Sigma Green Belt and Acccredited Quality Auditor (AQA) for IQMM courses conducted by Qimpro.

During his tenure with Qimpro, Mr Chakravarty trained over 30 Black Belts and 200 Green Belts and facilitated over 60 teams from various organizations to complete Six Sigma process improvement projects in manufacturing, service and transactional processes. He trained over 25 AQA’s for IQMM. He conducted several assessments for Qimpro Benchmark and COPQ.

Mr Chakravarty commenced his career with CMS Computers as a Customer Service Engineer and was responsible for preventive and breakdown maintenance of PC and network systems. Subsequently, he joined Johnson Controls, a then fortune 500 company specializing in building automation systems. Thereafter, as a part of a corporate global initiative, Mr Chakravarty was nominated from India for the Certified Six Sigma Black Belt course conducted by Six Sigma Academy in Malaysia. He then moved on to MIRC Electronics Limited, where he played a key role in launching and guiding the Six Sigma initiative.

Mr Chakravarty was a member of the Asia-Pacific Six Sigma deployment team and a founder member of the Centre of Engineering Excellence set up by Johnson Controls.

 

Mr Prashant Hoskote is Head – Quality at Mashreq Bank based in Dubai, UAE since April 2006. As the Head of Quality his role entails driving the six sigma methodology deployment across the bank, driving the Balanced Scorecard implementation, developing the Business Process Management System (BPMS) thereby a dashboards and metric driven culture, create a service culture across the bank through developing and facilitate implementation of service standards for all the bank channels, customer service training and so on.

Prior to this, Prashant was Head – Service Excellence for the Global Shared Service Centres (GSSC) of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) viz. Scope International, Chennai and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He was with the SCB for about three years.

Prashant has been responsible to oversee the Six Sigma implementation at Scope across all the seven verticals at Scope in Chennai and Kuala Lumpur. Through the Six Sigma Initiative Scope has delivered cost savings / QNIs of the order of over USD 5.5 Mio using the Six Sigma (DMAIC) methodology during his tenure.

Prior to SCB Prashant was the General Manager – Quality for three years, at the Taj Group of Hotels, the leading hotel chain in India. In this capacity, he represented the Corporate Quality function that oversees the implementation of the Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) that is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Award Model.

Prashant started his career with Qimpro Consultants - then the Indian affiliate of Juran Institute Inc, USA. Qimpro is a pioneer quality-consulting firm in India. He spent over a decade with Qimpro and was instrumental in bringing the concepts of Total Quality Management and Continuous Quality Improvement to India. During his stint at Qimpro he consulted with various blue-chip such as such as Citibank, Mukand, Tata Steel, Aga Khan University Hospital (Karachi), Jet Airways, Piramal Enterprises, Bharat Petroleum, Mahindra and Mahindra, Larsen and Toubro as well as international UNIDO funded assignments in Kenya and Pakistan. He was the editor of the professional journal on Quality Management titled, Qimpro. He used to be the Head of Qimpro College, a body created to create quality professionals in India. Prashant has been a Speaker at seminars conducted by the Indo-American Society, Mumbai, as well as authored articles in the Economic Times, Business Standard, and so on.

Mr. Arun Hariharan is a Quality, Knowledge Management and Balanced Scorecard practitioner with 22 years of international professional experience. He is currently President – Quality & Knowledge Management at Reliance Capital Ltd. His educational qualifications include an M.S. and M.B.A. – both from the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA.Reliance Capital is one of India’s largest financial service groups. Quality & Customer-focus are key strategic differentiators for the group – and he leads initiatives in this area.

In a previous role, he was responsible for the launch and institutionalization of one of the most successful Six Sigma Quality programs in Indian industry at Bharti AirTel. The Six Sigma implementation at Bharti which he led is now recognized as a model in Indian industry for speed of implementation, sustained business results, Leadership engagement & organizational transformation. He is also recognized internationally as a leading Knowledge Management practitioner.

He has received several recognitions for his work & results, including personal recognition by Dr. Mikel Harry. Dr. Harry is one of the original architects of Six Sigma.

He is regularly invited to speak at Quality & Knowledge Management related conferences in India & abroad. He has three times been Chairperson for Six Sigma conferences across the world at the invitation of the International Quality & Productivity Council.

The Six Sigma and Knowledge Management case studies of companies where he has led these initiatives are now part of the curriculum at some leading business schools.He is also the author of several papers and articles in leading international journals on the topics of Quality Leadership and Knowledge Management. This includes his white paper on Quality lessons for Leadership or Top Management which has been published by the American Society for Quality’s Six Sigma Forum magazine.

Col. R.K. Kalra is M. Tech (Mechanical), MBA (Finance), and a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt from Motorola University, USA.Prior to this assignment, he was Vice President & Head of Business Excellence Group with ABN AMRO Bank (ACES), at Mumbai.

Served the Indian Armed Forces for 21 years.  Commanded different Army units during peace and war. An Instructor and project director for B.Tech and M.Tech students.

A Qualified Lead Auditor for ISO 9001:2000 and Software Quality Assurance and an certified Examiner for IMC Ramakrishna Bajaj National Quality Award.

He has presented “Six Sigma Quality Initiative for Service Industries” paper at Asian Network Quality at Singapore, Bangkok & Hongkong. He completed his Total Quality Management (TQM) from JUSE, Tokyo, Japan.

Mr. S. Suryanarayanan is Vice President, Heavy Engineering Division of Larsen & Toubro Limited.  Prior to this, he was Head – International Sales and Strategic Planning.

He has more than 30 years of experience in Process Plant Equipment Business. He is a member of Working Committee of Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC).  He is a graduate in Chemical Engineering and Masters in Business Management.  He is also a Graduate of Wharton - Advanced Management Programme.

Shiana Makhija currently works for several companies in the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group as a senior vice-president, HR

She has a total of 16 years of experience.  She is a Master of Science in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and an MS in HR from the New School for Social Research, New York. In addition she is a Black Belt Six Sigma from the Six Sigma Academy.

Mr Homi Bhabha graduated with honours from the Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics, Bombay, and then served articles with Arthur Young McClelland Moores & Co (now Ernst & Young), London. He is presently a Fellow of both the Indian and English Institutes of Chartered Accountants. He returned to business in India as Director and then Vice-Chairman of Spencer & Company Limited, Madras, and was actively involved with the financial and business reconstruction of the company and its subsidiaries for 7 years.

He is a non-executive director in various Indian companies, in which he and his family have developed significant investment interests, in the fields of pharmaceuticals, automotive ancilliaries, industrial gases, insurance broking, consultancy and financial services, and is financial advisor to a software company in Madras. He is a Trustee of several charitable Trusts in Bombay, and the Managing Trustee of a temple trust in Bombay. 

He completed his B.Tech. in mechanical engineering from IIT Kanpur and his post graduate diploma in management from IIM, Bangalore.

In a management career spanning 29 years, Das has worked in multiple positions in marketing & business development. He is a director of Asia Tobacco Co. Ltd and a member of the executive council of the PanIIT Alumni India Board.

He has played a key role in leveraging innovation and new product development for business transformation.

Mr L V Keshav is a postgraduate in Chemical Engineering from University Dept. of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, having over 30 years experience in the chemical industry covering diverse areas such as Operations, Marketing, R&D, Corporate Quality and Training. During his tenure as Head Operations, spanning over two decades, he was instrumental in driving green field projects, capacity expansions, industrial relations and employee development.

He is currently Vice President- R & D, Corporate Quality and Environment Management at Ion Exchange India Limited (IEI)- a pioneer in water treatment- in India.

Mr Keshav is a Certified Senior examiner and team leader for the IMC- Ramkrishna Bajaj National Quality Award (RBNQA). He is also a Lead Auditor for Environment Management Systems (EMS), a lead assessor for OHSAS-18000 and Quality Management System (QMS).

As the head of Ion Exchange Training Division at IEI, he handled various consultancy assignments (both internal and external) related to COPQ analysis, Quality improvement projects based on Juran Quality Improvement methodology, and training. He has conducted a large number of certification audits for ISO –14001 and also provided consultancy for the implementation of EMS to various multinationals and Public Limited Companies.

Mr Keshav has also handled assignments relating to Process and Safety audits, HAZOP and risk assessment studies in chemical operations. He served as a faculty member on the panel of Asian Productivity Organization (Tokyo) and conducted several workshops in South East Asia (SEA) on Water and Waste Water Treatment, Environment Management systems, and Occupational Health and Safety.

Mr Suresh Mhatre, born in 1954, Suresh Mhatre is amongst the first of the new generation of managers in the IT industry who have specialised in e-Governance.After schooling in St. Mary’s Bombay, where as a House Captain his leadership qualities were first evident, Suresh completed his college education in St. Xavier’s, before proceeding to SPCE, University of Bombay for a degree in Engineering.

During his graduation, he was elected Chairman of the Bombay University Students Council and was a member of the University Senate.  After graduation in Mechanical Engineering in 1977, Suresh went on to complete his Masters in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University Of Florida, USA.

He joined TCS in January 1979 and spent his initial years developing software before going on to head the Management Consultancy Division in TCS. His technical excellence won him the IIIE Gold Medal for the ‘Best Case Study’.  He also went on to become the National Vice-President of the Institute of Management Consultants of India.He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India.

In 1989, he was shifted to HR and appointed the youngest Head Of Manpower Allocation Committee of TCS, which handles all project allocations.  In the next 3 years he completely overhauled the department and achieved the greatest jump in manpower productivity experienced by TCS.Also he helped TCS introduce the concept of key resource identification and mentoring which has helped in controlling attrition.

In 1992,he went on to head the Branch Level Review team in Bombay, which reviews the manpower productivity and client satisfaction.  During this time, he also was member of the JRD-QV award winning team, which introduced world-class values to TCS.