Our three final signatory authorities are :
- Ms Bala Deshpande (Business and Finance)
- Ms Sobhana Jaya- Madhavan (Social science)
- Dr Annapoorni Subhramanyam (Science and technology)
Ms Bala Deshpande
Bala Deshpande is the Senior Managing Director of the venture capital firm, New Enterprise Associates (India) since 2008. NEA is a venture capital firm with over US$13 billion in committed capital.NEA started direct investments in India during the downturn in 2008 and has since built a portfolio of 14 companies. Prior to joining the board of NEA (India), Bala was the Director of Investments at ICICI Ventures since 2000. At ICICI Venture, she used her operational experience to identify opportunities for investment and to play a strategic role in shaping the future of investee companies. She led teams in deals ranging from Rs 6 crore to Rs 300 crore at ICICI Venture.
Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam
Dr. Annapurni Subramaniam is the director & Chief of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore and works on areas like star clusters, stellar evolution and population in galaxies and Magellanic clouds. Dr. Subramaniam was a Research Fellow at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics from 1990-96. She then became a Post Doctoral Fellow in 1998 at the institute and currently works as a professor and director of institute. Her current projects include -
- Emission line stars in star clusters
- Star formation history of young star clusters
- Candidate old open clusters - unraveling the old disk
- Accurate photometry of unstudied open clusters/li>
- Halo of the Small Magellanic Cloud
- Stellar population in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Ms. Sobhana Jaya- Madhavan
Ms Sobhana born in Malaysia, studied in India and working now in Canada as for more than 2 decades. She completed her MSW from TISS in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work.. As SFU’s (Simon Frasor University) associate vice-president of external relations for the last two years, Sobhana has really been walking the talk as she builds relationships with community partners, business leaders, government, non-profits and other institutions.
- Women of the decade award in Education & Leadership
- Nominated for Bharat Shiromani award
- Didihood (“Sisterhood” of South Asian creatives in Canada) recently profiled her as one of 10 South Asian role models.
- Social Worker/Executive Director/Acting Assistant Deputy Minister for Ministry of Children and Family Development
- Associate Vice President and Head HR for Newgen KnowledgeWorks
- Special Advisor for organizations including TechDiva