Management

Sourav Mukherjee
Founder & CEO, Netscribes

Sourav is the founder of Netscribes and has been spearheading its strategy and business development activities since its inception in 2000. Set up as a classical start-up with just 5 employees, Netscribes has successfully raised three rounds of private equity capital and now ranks among the top research and market intelligence firms in India.

Sourav was formerly the Finance Editor of The Economic Times, the world's third largest business and financial daily, and part of India's largest media house—Bennett, Coleman & Co (owners of The Times of India Group and other major brands and properties). During his 10-year stint, Sourav drove finance and industry sector news, research coverage and strategic initiatives like building in-house databases, structuring and launching new products, and research initiatives. Sourav was also responsible for recruiting and training personnel, and managing large teams of writers, analysts and researchers. Prior to joining The Economic Times, he was involved in business reporting with The ABP Group of Publications—eastern India's largest publishing firm, and teaching English at graduate and post-graduate levels.

Sourav holds a postgraduate degree in English Literature with specialisation in medieval European classics, and is a National Educational Trust qualified university lecturer in English literature.

Andrew Garvin
Vice President (USA), Netscribes

Andy is responsible for driving the US business development strategy for Netscribes, Inc.

Andy was the founder of FIND/SVP, Inc, a leading business intelligence, market research and advisory firm that later merged with Guideline, Inc, which was then acquired in 2007 by Infogroup, and then merged with Opinion Research Corporation. He retired as CEO of the company in 2004, but remained active in a consulting capacity until 2010.

Started by Mr. Garvin with just $12,000 in capital, FIND/SVP grew organically and by acquisition to be a $50 million publicly-held firm. It served the research needs of more than 1,000 retainer client organizations. The company is known for pioneering in the U.S. the concept of quick question-answering through telephone consultations with expert professionals and, later, via the Web. Operating now as ORC International, the firm remains a leading market research company.
Mr. Garvin has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Information Industry Association, and remains an active member of the American Management Association, and the American Marketing Association. From 1987 to 1996 he was a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and is now a member of the World Presidents’ Organization (WPO). He has been the moderator of his WPO “Forum” group for several years.

Mr. Garvin holds a B.A. in political science from Yale University and an MS. in journalism from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He is a native of New York City, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Gagan Kaul
Vice President – Sales Intelligence

Gagan heads the Sales Intelligence services practice, and is responsible for sales & business development and account management activities for this line of business.

Gagan has 7+ years of experience in business research, market intelligence and information services. Prior to his current role, Gagan was the Operations Head for the Mumbai centre, leading project teams working across diverse sectors for a multitude of clients from the IT, PE/VC, manufacturing, publishing and healthcare industries. He was also managing one of the largest market intelligence project teams for a global IT major and providing information support across 34 geographies globally. Gagan has also worked on numerous one-off research assignments and knowledge management projects for various clients. Gagan has a keen interest in IT and web-related technologies, and passionately follows the developments in this space. Before joining Netscribes, Gagan was running an IT start-up that he had co-founded on campus.

Gagan has attended IIT Bombay, pursuing a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering. He is also the recipient of the National Talent Search award from the Government of India.

Saurav Chakraborty
Vice President – Sales, Research & Analytics

Saurav heads the sales & business development initiatives for the Research & Analytics line of business at Netscribes.

Saurav has 10 years of experience in working with financial institutions. Prior to this role, he was one of the key members in the research team where he was responsible for managing projects pertaining to investment research, which included the entire gamut of equity research services and investment banking support. He has worked with both buy and sell-side clients across industries. Saurav is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and he also has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta. He is a CFA level II candidate, a certified accounting technician, and holds certification from the National Stock Exchange for Derivatives and Mutual Funds. He is also a Mathematics Olympiad qualifier, a winner of the All India Mathematics Talent Search and a recipient of the National Scholarship.

Somnath Banerjee
Vice President - Research & Analytics

Somnath comes with nearly 12 years of diverse experience in operations management, investment research, corporate accounting and insurance underwriting. He joined Netscribes in August 2008 and currently heads the firm’s Research & Analytics team. He is responsible for revenue growth and profitability of the LOB. His responsibilities also include managing operations, resource and production planning, and business development pertaining to the LOB.

Prior to joining Netscribes, Somnath worked with Independent International Investment Research PLC for 4 years as an Independent Equity Research Analyst. In addition, he has more than 4 years of experience in corporate accounting and insurance underwriting, working with industry leaders like ICICI Prudential.

Somnath holds an M.B.A. (Finance) from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, and a Post Graduation in Accounting from Calcutta University.

Ravi Lakhina

Ravi Lakhina brings over 11 years of Operations experience with him. He has been a part of Netscribes family since July 2009 and currently heads Contents Solutions which includes K-12, Corporate and Media Publishing. His responsibilities mainly include revenue generation, LOB profitability, Capacity utilization and Sales & Business Development. Prior to his current role, Ravi handled K12 Sub-LOB and was involved in setting up complete new Line of Business for NS. He has rich experience in the field of productions and Client servicing for top 10 global Publishers and also in managing multilingual projects.

Before Netscribes, Ravi has worked with various pre-press and pre-media companies like Macmillan Publishing Solutions, Aptara Corp and Thomson Digital in the areas related to journal production, Books and XML workflow process. Ravi holds PGDBA (Operations) from Symbiosis institute of Management Studies.

Navin Wadhwani
Senior Vice President – Finance

Navin is responsible for managing funds, corporate finance activities and vendor / employee emoluments negotiation. In past, Navin served as a Manager (Finance at ACNielsen ORG) Marg Research. While at ACNielsen, he was responsible for managing funds, financial reporting of a Strategic Business Unit and ensuring compliance with Company & Income Tax Laws. Navin received a Bachelor of Commerce from University of Mumbai and is a certified Chartered Accountant.

Saurabh Shekhar
Vice President – Human Resources, Technology, Patent Research & Quality Management System

Saurabh Shekhar is one of the co-founders of Inrea Research, a patent research and analytics company, now acquired by Netscribes and operating as its wholly owned subsidiary. Saurabh has been instrumental in setting up operations and managing end-to-end delivery, quality control and administrative services for Inrea Research (now Netscribes’ Patent Research practice) on a global basis. Apart from counselling the commercial entities, venture capital and private equity firms, he is focused on developing and managing intellectual property portfolios, conducting strategic analyses of various large patent portfolios and supporting patent infringement litigations. Apart from leading Netscribes’ Patent Research practice, he currently heads the operations support divisions including Human Resources, Technology and QMS at Netscribes.

Prior to working for Netscribes and Inrea Research, Saurabh has worked with Evalueserve in its Intellectual Property division. Saurabh has a Bachelors degree in Technology in Metallurgical Engineering & Materials Science from IIT Bombay.