Board
James Gunderson [New York]
Founder, Chair
Jim is the Founder of Governance and Transactions, serving MNCs and PE firms globally. Before that, Jim was Secretary and General Counsel of Schlumberger Limited and General Counsel of Vetco. Jim served as Chairman of the Board of Aibel AS. Jim is Chair Emeritus of the Board of The National Association of Corporate Directors, New York Chapter.
Jim Gunderson is a guest lecturer on M&A and joint venture transactions at law and business schools in Europe and the US.
Jim has served on the Boards of Magic Theatre, The California Music Project and SEED (Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development). Jim is the owner of Galvanic Theatricals and a co-producer of Broadway and off-Broadway plays and other performing arts projects.
Raju Reddy
Board member since 2016.
A G Karunakaran
Board member since 2018. President and CEO at MulticoreWare Inc.
Aparna Pujar
Recognized for her solution-oriented thinking and energetic leadership style, Aparna Pujar has created a dynamic career as an entrepreneur, product visionary, and technologist. With a career spanning over 20 years in business, engineering, and product leadership roles, Aparna has brought world-class products to technology companies focused in areas such as media, healthcare, and retail and in her current role as the CEO and founder of Zemplee
Among Aparna’s wide-ranging accomplishments, she became the co-inventor of methods and systems for consolidating purchase orders in 2011. Aparna Pujar has also been a guest speaker at various conferences and summits, offering her expertise on “The Innovation Enterprise” at the Social Media & Web Analytics Innovation Summit, “Women 2.0 Conference” for NextGenWomen and “Behavior Data at eBay” at the 2nd Annual Global Big Data Conference. She is also passionate about creating more opportunities for female entrepreneurs in the tech sector.
Aparna Pujar currently resides with her family in Silicon Valley, California.
Sushma Sharma
CEO & Chief Strategist, Core Clarity Consulting
Combining 20+ years of experience working with some of the most notable law firms and educational program both domestically and in the international theater with multiple degrees and honors from some of the world’s most prestigious educational institutions, Sushma Sharma is positioned to help people and companies navigate where they want to go.
As CEO & Chief Strategist of Core Clarity Consulting, Sushma utilizes the unique experience she has gained as an attorney, head of professional legal education program, entrepreneur, and board advisor, to bring structure during chaos to clients of Core Clarity Consulting. Sushma was a corporate lawyer at two esteemed global Wall Street law firms (Shearman & Sterling and Kirkland & Ellis) and has extensive experience in M&A, Private Equity and general corporate work, which includes board advisory, and crisis management work.
She transformed the Practical Legal Education program at City U in Hong Kong and made it the most prestigious and practical program for would be lawyers. She sat on the policy level boards, which included the two branches of legal practice, the government and the three universities on legal education in Hong Kong and was also part of the multi university board for higher legal education.
Sushma started Konversai, which was a peer-to-peer learning education tech platform in 2016, which closed its doors in 2022. She overall brings to the table invaluable legal, academic, business, leadership and organizational skills.
Sushma earned a Masters of Laws (L.L.M.) from Columbia Law School where she was Human Rights Scholar; Master of Laws (B.C.L.) from Oxford University where she was Radhakrishnan British Chevening Scholar; and, Bachelor of Laws (L.L.B.) from University of Delhi – Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law. In April 2023 Sushma earned a Corporate Governance: Maximize Your Effectiveness in the Boardroom Certificate from University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School, Aresty Institute of Executive Education.
Sushma now lives in New York City with her daughter Leela and her dog Coco.
Vinita Sud Belani [Houston/Silicon Valley]
CEO, Artistic Director, and Founder
Vinita Sud Belani is the Founding Artistic Director of EnActe Arts, a theatre company co-located in Houston and Silicon Valley that develops and presents thought-provoking, universally appealing stories that put South Asia in a global context. EnActe focuses on inclusive representation and talent development.
Belani is an actor, director and producer. Her recent directing credits include Go to your room, Mother!, Chaos Theory, The Conference of the Birds, Soundwaves: The Passion of Noor Inayat Khan, Queen and The Case of The Vanishing Firefish, which she co-wrote. Vinita is trained in street theatre under the renowned director and playwright Badal Sircar.
Vinita brings to the world of artrepreneurship twenty years of CXO level experience in the corporate world, in technology development and management of technology, both in large multinational corporations and in Silicon Valley startups. Belani has lived and worked in nine countries across four continents, speaks seven languages fluently and has served on several non-profit boards dealing with educational access, domestic vionce and sex trafficking.
Vinita holds a degree in Computer Science from BITS Pilani, India, an MBA from HEC France, a Diplôme in French from the Sorbonne and a Diplom in German from the Max Mueller Institute.
Ajay Chowdhury [London]
Founder
Ajay is the Managing Director and Partner at BCG Digital Ventures, London, the Non-Executive Chairman of Cambridge Enterprise, MachineMax and FAIRFX. Previously he was CEO of SeatWave and ComQi, and Chairman of ComQi and Shazam.
Ajay has been named as one of the 100 most influential and powerful Asians in the UK, 30 pioneers In Asian tech, Dealmaker of the Year 2015 by M&A Magazine for the Seatwave sale to Ticketmaster, Top 100 Asian tech stars and selected as one of 2016’s Sunday Times top 100 BAME business leaders in the UK.
Ajay is the Artistic Director of Rented Space Theatre Company and the author of a young adult novel; a detective novel is in the works.
