Headline

Driving startup - corporate partnerships | Innovations Program Manager | Ex Deshpande Startups | Ex Co-founder Movifi

About

With a decade of experience in startups and corporate growth, I specialize in strategizing and managing end-to-end Open Innovation projects. I have mastered in sourcing, scouting, partnerships, deal flow, stakeholder management, making research reports and event execution. I've also, 📈 taken startups from 0 to 1, 🎬 built a thriving community of 12,000+ filmmakers from scratch, 🚀 exceeded startup onboarding targets by 60%, and 🤝 led end to end incubation cohort that surpassed application goals by 300%. I'm a people person, I love understanding founders' pain points and design strategies to empower them. I don’t just like to execute operations I love to optimize them.

Location

Bengaluru

AI stack

claude

notion

ChatGPT

Granola

Napkin AI

Wispr Flow

Work experience

Project Manager at Link Innovations, Jul 2026 - Present · 4 mos, Hybrid

Innovation Program Manager at Link Innovations, Aug 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 3 mos, Bengaluru, Managing innovation projects for the OVHcloud Startup Program, MathWorks, TATA Communications, Renault Nissan Technology & Business Centre India (RNTBCI) and Capgemini

Innovation Project Consultant for Shell E4 at Shell, Aug 2023 - Jan 2024 · 6 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Supported partnership & deployment for Shell E4 • Involved in planning and crafting artifacts like templates, dashboards, trackers to streamline departmental processes. These deliverables proved to be highly effective for the Shell E4 team, aiding them in easy access, utilization, and tracking. • Initiated external partnerships with corporates and VC firms for the Shell E4 program. • Liaised with startup founders to explore potential POC/deployment opportunities.

Personal goal pursuit at Career Break, Sep 2022 - Jun 2023 · 10 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka

Cohort Lead, Incubation at Deshpande Startups, Oct 2021 - Aug 2022 · 11 mos, Hubli, Karnataka, India, Managed a diverse Incubation cohort of early-stage startups spanning industries such as Carbon Tech, Circular Economy, EdTech, Psychometric Software, and AgriTech, providing tailored support and facilitating collaboration for their accelerated growth. • Facilitated day-to-day support for Incubatees. • Stakeholder management to support the success of the Startup as well as the Program. • Provided continued strategic guidance and support to entrepreneurs in areas such as business modeling, sales & marketing, overall strategy, etc • Internally reviewed & tracked the growth of the startups every 15 days. • Planned and executed marketing strategy for Cohort 5 Incubation Program, which resulted in 400+ startups applying from across India. • Conducted online workshops, and interactive section with the cohort & Deshpande Startup community to build strong relationships among entrepreneurs as well as the organization. • Proposed Community Strategy & other ideas to enhance the program's strength. • Prepared resource documents for startups to refer to for their learning. • Visited 5 incubated startups in person to gain insight on the underlying on-ground issues.

Co-Founder at Small Town Startups, Aug 2020 - Apr 2021 · 9 mos, Hubli, Karnataka, India, Built a cohort of creators, technologists, strategists to develop solutions for key industry problem statements. Gathered best talents in town to collaboratively work on a few projects.

Education

Bachelor of Commerce (BCom), Business/Commerce, General, J G College of Commerce Hubli