I’ve known Sanjay for over thirty years from our time together at business school in India He is one of the most well read and informed people I know. He is highly regarded for his experience and views on entrepreneurship and innovation, and his ability to be brutally honest in his capacity as mentor to startups, established companies and industry bodies. He jokingly describes himself as not just a mentor, but a tormentor to his mentees.

As a passionate advocate of entrepreneurship and innovation, he writes, lectures, advises, invests and mentors startups, companies and industry bodies on innovation, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking. He is the co-founder of a not-profit company, Network of Indian Cultural Enterprises (NICEorg.in) that aims to create an ecosystem for nurturing and growing successful Indian cultural enterprises; the global ambassador for iSpirt (ispirt.in) a not-for-profit technology focused think-do tank that works to create digital platforms for societal transformation, Executive Board member of IIIT Bangalore housed Mosip.io, an open source national ID platform for countries, and advisor with the Data Governance Network. He also serves on the boards of publicly traded Quess Corp, Allsec Technologies, impact consulting company Sattva Consulting, governing board member of TiE Bangalore, and advisor to NSRCEL-IIMB, CWE and other organisations.

Sanjay has led or played key roles in several pioneering high tech cross border product development initiatives. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded Neta, perhaps the first VC backed software company in Silicon Valley created by founders who had relocated from India, that subsequently became a part of Infoseek/Disney. He also set up Venturekatalyst, India’s first entrepreneur focused web magazine and JumpStartUp in 2000, one of India’s 1st tech oriented VC funds, investing in Silicon Valley and India. In 2016, he published Startup Mantras, which became one of the top business books of that year, according to Business Insider. It is a collection of 100 lessons for entrepreneurs and managers, and is unusual in that it packed so much wisdom with such brevity and simplicity.

Trailer: Interesting Lives of Ordinary People (iLoOP)

Interesting Lives of Ordinary PeopleBy Rohini RathourMay 23, 2021