Leadership Team

Sanjiv Rai: Founder and CEO
Innovator and serial entrepreneur with 17 years track record in creating new benchmarks in innovation and spearheading multi-million commercializations globally. Sanjiv has been the chief architect of D5 chip, AceWP standard, AceWP Innovation Labs and CHANDRA project at NASA towards its mission on setting up the first human inhabitancy infrastructure in space(on the moon). He owns several intellectual properties. He is recognized as Whoswho in the World(Marquiswhoswho), Whoswho in America, Whoswho in Science and Technology, Whoswho in Business, Top 100 Disruptive Innovators by Red Herring, Top 10 Asian Techno Visionaries by ZDNet and Top 10 emerging star entrepreneurs by NASSCOM amongst others. He is a frequently invited speaker on Innovation across the globle and chairs several international committees. He manages to speak about 14 languages(many of them from different regions of India) and takes active interest in learning about diversity of talent across geographies. Sanjiv graduated from University of Calcutta and shelved aside his thesis for Doctorate in Electrical Engineering at UCL in the pursuit of innovation. In addition to his role as the CEO, he has been a key champion behind Lean Six-Sigma and CMMI-IPPD rigor at ARE.


Valmik Desai: CFO
Valmik brings two decades of International Finance, Accounting and Taxation experience to steer ARE’s Finance and fund raising roadmap. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the University of Florida. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant from India and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from the University of Bombay. Apart from looking after Finance and Taxation, he helps conduct the Product and IPR pricing issues for ARE products. In the past, Valmik has held important finance positions. He was the CFO - Octagon Process Inc., Controller – Stewart Hall Chemical Corp. and Financial Analyst at Faberge.


Neetish Doshi: Director
Neetish is Managing Director – EON Investments Ltd. EON is a Mauritius-based Venture Capital (angel fund) firm having investments in small to mid-size Companies. EON has committed up to US$ 1.5 million in ARE based on milestones achieved. Neetish is an expert on IPOs and a successful strategic investor having an established history of successful listings. By education, Neetish is an acclaimed Chartered Accountant and brings two decades of Global experience in Investments and Finance. Neetish provides insights into Financial Strategy building and Investment decisions.

 
Prof. Niraj Jha: Hon. Director – Research and Development (SoC)
Prof. Jha holds a PhD in EE from UIUC and is Professor of Electrical Engineering (Micro and NanoelectronicsSoC design and Synthesis) at Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and ACM and has several awards and honors to his credit in IC design and implementation. He has been on the faculty at Princeton for 17 years. Prof. Jha brings over two decades of Electrical Engineering and SoC expertise to help envision and achieve ARE’s R&D objectives. He has served as the Director for Center for Embedded SoC Design at Princeton for the past five years. Prof. Jha is the R&D Director for the D5 SoC Design and is the Co-chair of the ARE D5 committee. In addition, he co-steers the Joint Research Initiatives between ARE and Princeton University with Sanjeev.
 

Prof. U. B. Desai: Hon. Director – Research & Development (DSP)
Prof. Desai holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University. He is the Ex-Dean (SA) and Professor, Electrical Engineering – IIT Bombay and Ex-Director - HP Research Lab. He has held various positions in the past as Associate Professor at the Washington State University, Arizona State University, Purdue University and Stanford University. He has several awards and papers to his credit in Digital Signal Processing and is the Associate editor of IEEE publications on DSP. Prof. Desai brings over 25 years of Electrical Engineering and DSP expertise to help envision and achieve ARE’s R & D objectives. He mentors ARE in drawing its technology roadmap and is the R&D Director for the D5 DSP implementation. He is also the Co-chair of ARE D5 Committee.

ARE Leadership Team also comprises a 15-member Global Board of Advisors who represent the Academia and Industry in senior to top leadership roles. Along with the Board of Directors, they provide regular mentoring and support to the ARE execution team.