As CEO, Gary Oliver brings over 30 years’ experience in early stage, mid-size, and global technology companies, most recently serving as Chairman and CEO of Razorthink, a leading AI company. Prior to Razorthink, Gary was CEO of Blazent, the leader in IT data intelligence. Gary lead the IT Service Management business units at Peregrine and Remedy, and was Senior Vice President at Visa responsible for the company’s IT strategy and initiatives. Earlier in his career, Gary held numerous sales, marketing and executive roles at IBM including responsibility for IBM’s multi-billion-dollar Data Management SW revenue. Gary is a graduate of UCLA and serves on multiple company and non-profit boards.

Manu is Chief Evangelist of Excelerate. He founded the organization in 2017. His passion for building a global network of decision makers lead to the creation of Excelerate. When he is not drumming up support for Excelerate he is a Managing Director with Inventus Capital, a micro-VC fund investing in seed stage startups. Manu has had a passion for tech startups and an ever inquisitive mind. Prior to investing with Inventus, Manu was at Google where he worked on several digital consume businesses. He then joined Lolapp’s early senior team to build a successful social gaming company, and he then joined NewsCorp’s Digital Division as VP Product.

Manu has effectively managed conflict of interest by removing himself from the startup selection committee when one of his portfolio companies apply. To date only four of Inventus’s portfolio startups have been accepted in the program.

Manu is a father of two amazing kids and loves learning from them. He can often be seen on Bay Area trails hiking or biking with his kids. Loves to travel, cook and regularly guest lectures at Haas School of Business. Manu holds a B.S. from Boston University and a joint MBA from Columbia Business School and Walter Haas School of Business.

Prashant K. Gulati (popularly known as PK) is a technology innovator, entrepreneur, idea accelerator, early stage investor, mentor and commentator with interests in exponential technologies, innovation, start-ups, entrepreneurship, future of work, mobility, knowledge sharing and more.

With a portfolio of ventures in India, Middle East and US, he is actively involved in providing mentorship, investment, guidance and advice to leading startups and global venture investment companies at various levels for over a decade. He is a well known authority on, Smart and Exponential technologies; an early adopter, experimenter, maker and a supporter of building viable businesses with, and around, real smart technologies.

He has been actively associated with TiE, Dubai Future Foundation, The Assembly, Hub71, in5 Innovation Centre, Sheraa, SmartStart Fund, NASSCOM, Future Now, Dubai Enterprise Centre, Indian Documentary Foundation and many other global initiatives, besides multiple global Board and Advisory positions.

Sheeba is a visual artist and a graphic designer who believes that we have tremendous power to communicate ideas, bring meaning to context and making things visually appealing. Over the years, she has worked in video editing, graphics design, photography and photo-editing. Currently, her pursuits are focused heavily on InfoGraphics and creating visually appealing presentations that communicate ideas clearly.

Maura served as Chief of Staff in U.S. Senate addressing the 2008 financial crisis, oil price explosion & renewal of clean energy tax credits. She has started four companies in the fields of electricity efficiency, customer info systems & billing, e-commerce & digital education. She Co-led USAID Forward, Agency’s major reform initiative & created ground-breaking public-private partnerships in supply chain sourcing, mobile money, gender equity, entrepreneurship & new models for sourcing & scaling development interventions.

Raju’s passion for building world class organizations has led him to work closely with exceptional leaders and teams in the for-profit and non-profit fields in diverse areas such as education, community development, livelihoods and entrepreneurship. To be mentored by one of the best entrepreneur cum philanthropist, Kanwal Rekhi, Raju believes that believe one of the best ways to address social challenges is also through the principles of entrepreneurship by defining a clear vision, building accountability and execution excellence in the organization.

Raj is a co-founder and Director of Selectica Inc (Nasdaq:SLTC), an enterprise software company which had one of the ten most successful IPOs of 2000. He served as CEO and President of Selectica from its inception in 1996 through July 2002.
Raj also served as President of OPTi Inc (Nasdaq: OPTI), which he co-founded in 1988, leading the sales, marketing, and strategy/ business development efforts.

• Author: Magic Box Paradigm
• GM, Advsr, Partner, Ackrell Capital, VP, Rutberg & Co

Gaurav Bhasin has been a senior advisor to Excelerate since inception in 2017. He has been graciously been a sounding board for entrepreneurs through the life cycle of the company and helping in evaluating various milestones (Positioning, Capital Raises, Exits etc.). Gaurav is Managing Director at Allied Advisers a firm he started. He was Managing director at Capstone Headwaters and Pagemill Partners and worked as an investment banker at Banc of America Securities. He has closed more than 50 transactions across a variety of sectors including transactions in Canada, Europe, India and Israel. Gaurav holds an MS in engineering from UCLA and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA.

Prof. Ricardo is helping Excelerate us by creating and optimizing matchmaking AI algorithms and increase efficiency by focussing on the right set of problems. Ricardo has worked for almost 15 years with Manu Rekhi and is currently a professor of AI at UFPel, Brasil.

“Rajeev Chand previously served as Managing Director at Rutberg & Company. He also co-created Rutberg’s summits, including the flagship Wireless Influencers, and hosted and interviewed the most influential leaders in business and technology. He also worked in venture capital, private equity, and strategy consulting. Currently, Rajeev is a Partner at Wing responsible for research.
Rajeev holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and completed the Stanford Executive Program at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.”

Indus Khatian has been involved with Excelerate from Day 1 and has helped numerous founders on how to pitch to a C-level executive. He collaborates closely with Amit Pande to get perfection.

Amit Pande has been involved with Excelerate from Day 1 and has helped numerous founders on how to tell their personal and company story.  He conforms the storytelling consistent to the book Magic Box Paradigm written by our other advisor, Ezra Roizen. 

Anil is a startup lawyer, angel investor, and mentor to early-stage startup founders in Silicon Valley and across the world. Anil advises early-stage start-up companies from 2-3 “guys in the garage” to global multinational corporations from inception through the life-cycle of the venture, negotiating angel and venture financings, customer and licensing transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. Over the last 19 years Anil has worked at powerhouse law firms such as Cooley Godward and Orrick Herrington, and now Inventus Law. Anil has represented over 3,000 startups, angels, founders, and has been involved in almost 500 financing and M&A transactions valued at over $3 billion in the aggregate. Anil has made over 25 angel investments in companies across the spectrum, from healthcare, financial services, to software and saas ventures.

Anil is licensed to practice law in California, New York and India, and has represented U.S based investors and Companies in investments, acquisitions, and strategic expansion with India based companies, as well as 100’s of startups from India, Singapore, Europe and South America in setting up operations and closing financing and M&A transactions in Silicon Valley. Anil also has an active practice representing global companies that are part of YC, 500 Startups, Startup Chile, Tandem, Alchemist, Fabric and other accelerators and incubators.

Inventus Law is Anil’s own entrepreneurial venture with the primary goal of providing experienced legal counsel to start-up companies in a much more cost-effective, responsive and founder friendly manner than any of the “big” law firms out there.

Lawyers at Inventus Law love helping founders of startup companies navigate the many pitfalls a startup usually encounters, and have worked with companies in a wide spectrum of industries, and going through varied lifecycles, from self-funded, seed funded to fast-growing $100M+ Companies.