Meet our team - Impetus

Meet our team

With over 3000+ global employees, the Impetus team blends passion and dedication with a wealth of expertise in all things cloud and data for a modern business.

Our leadership team has decades of experience bringing companies of all sizes to the cloud, quickly.

Praveen Kankariya

Founder and Executive Chairman

Impetus was founded by Praveen Kankariya. Under his leadership, the company has grown steadily and become a leader in technology services.

Praveen co-founded Servigistics that went on to become a world leader in service supply chain planning and was subsequently acquired by PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC).

Praveen also worked in the Corporate Research Labs at 3M Corporation, where he designed and developed a distributed version of the AI-based Sage field service scheduler for 24×7 business critical

operations. Praveen began his career with Scientific Computing Associates. He was one of the first employees of the company’s Linda parallel processing product group and implemented the Linda kernel on several parallel architectures.

Praveen earned his Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Michigan State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from S.G.S.I.T.S., India.

Praveen serves on the boards of Lift Labs and US SQUASH.

Ritu Bapna

Co-founder and Executive Vice-Chairman

Impetus in the US was co founded by Ritu Bapna.

Ritu began her career with Jaipur Metals in 1990. Ritu has contributed to building Impetus from its early days in many different ways.

Ritu is deeply into meditation and spiritual growth.

Ritu earned her Master’s degree in Business Management from Ajmer University and a Bachelor’s degree from Osmania University.

Rajeeva Gupta

Chief Executive Officer

Rajeeva Gupta is responsible for managing high-quality product deliveries within all Outsourced Product Engineering engagements. His role is to enhance customer value by consistently improving on deliveries.

At Impetus, Rajeeva works actively with clients across all phases of the product development lifecycle, providing critical inputs right from conceptualization, to implementation. He has made significant contributions towards many successful product deployments, roll out and support for clients across all verticals.

Rajeeva began his career in 1986, as Executive Director–R&D with Quark Media House, India. His 20 years of working experience has enabled Rajeeva to manage diverse projects in business applications development. He is known in particular for his expertise in handling project execution based on a globally distributed and onsite-offshore model.

He holds a B.E. (Hons.) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and an MS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.

His hobbies include reading science fiction and watching cricket. He resides in New Delhi with his wife and two children.

Anand Raman

Chief Revenue Officer

Anand Raman is responsible for business growth at Impetus and driving engagements in offshore product services.

Anand has played a key role in nurturing and drawing new clients to the organization. He has successfully managed client expectations and enhanced customer delight by creating an interface between the user organization and Impetus’ offshore engineering team. Additionally, he is providing presales support to the US sales team.

Anand brings to the table his acuity in mapping latent customer requirements to the technology expertise available at Impetus, to forge win-win relationships. He has contributed significantly towards the setting up of the off-shore business development team in the US and been mentoring new inductees in the US office.

Anand began his career in 1993 as a programmer, developing enterprise applications for large manufacturing organizations. He gravitated to the role of a business analyst prior to joining Impetus.

A Bachelor of Mathematics, Anand holds an MBA degree in Marketing from the University of Indore, India.

In his spare time, Anand dabbles in adventure sports and squash and enjoys being with the family. He is also fond of classical music. He lives in Saratoga, CA with his wife and children.

Barry Tuthill

Vice President
Global Sales

Barry is a Solutions and Strategy professional focused on cloud, machine learning, and data technologies. With over 15 years of enterprise software strategy experience, he manages Impetus’ field sales and business development organization.

Barry has been working in the Data and Analytics industry for more than ten years with organizations like MicroStrategy, Tibco Spotfire, and Platfora. He has extensive experience in application software sales across healthcare, life sciences, retail, CPG, financial services, and manufacturing verticals.

Barry has a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Rhode Island, US.

Chetan Kalanki

Vice President
Global Engineering Services

As the Vice President of Engineering, Chetan heads the global Cloud Engineering and IP practice. He oversees several data and enterprise architecture practices, cloud testing initiatives and has also incubated Impetus RPA practice.

Chetan joined Impetus in 2004 and has successfully led multiple software solutions projects across enterprise applications, big data platforms, SFDC, and the cloud. He also leads joint B.Tech. programs with multiple universities in India to nurture and hire fresh talent.

Chetan holds a Bachelor’s degree in IT Engineering from Shri Vaishnav Institute of Technology and Science, Indore, India.

Chetan enjoys cooking, driving, watching videos on leadership and spirituality. He lives in Indore, India with his wife and two daughters.

Kingshuk Tewari

Vice President
Account Management

Kingshuk works as the Account Head for a Fortune 100 BFSI customer and has been at the forefront of developing a strong partnership with one of Impetus’ largest clients. His acute business sense and knack of problem solving has helped him guide the customer to innumerable pathbreaking partnerships with Impetus over the years. His stint with Impetus has coincided with a spurt of meteoric growth for the organization, which has seen Impetus deliver some of the most strategic projects for the BFSI customer. He continues to design and structure our growth strategy.

Kingshuk holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) in Strategy from The Ohio State University and brings more than 16 years of experience from across industries like banking, insurance, telecom, and retail.

In his spare time, Kingshuk loves to play tennis and watch sports. He lives in Phoenix with his wife and two dogs.

Mike Harden

Vice President
Strategic Accounts

Mike joined Impetus in 2014. He spent his early years with Impetus as Area Vice President for the southeastern US. In that role, he was responsible for assisting Impetus prospects and customers in applying big data technology strategies and solutions. During that time, he built some of our largest and most enduring customer relationships. Mike continues to expand his impact on strategic accounts for Impetus.

Mike brings over 30 years of experience working in software and services companies across engineering, program management, marketing, and sales. His experience ranges from 18 years with the legendary Digital Equipment Corporation where among many roles he led a global effort in designing and delivering integrated factory information networks to position with mid-sized software product companies, and start-ups.

Mike has an undergraduate degree in Engineering from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York.

Mike and his family live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. In his spare time, he works out, enjoys the outdoors and is a “Who’s Who in America” award recipient. Mike is published in technical journals, active in his church, community and wishes he had filed patents that were later awarded to someone else!

Murat Aksu

Vice President
Global Partnerships & Alliances

Murat is a global business executive with 20+ years of partner management, product marketing, and sales leadership experience. At Impetus, he manages Global Channels and Alliances Business Development organization.

Murat has worked for multiple software and IT services companies, including Manhattan, Mercury Interactive, HP, Capgemini, and Elastic. He has managed multi-billion USD partner businesses with teams spanning across the globe.

Murat has a BS in International Business from Florida State University and an MS in Computer Information Systems from Georgia State University.

Dr. Ravishankar Rao Vallabhajosyula

Senior Director
Data Science

Ravi leads the Data Science practice at Impetus. He joined Impetus in 2014 and has contributed extensively to various AI and ML initiatives. He has been involved in delivering successful data science engagements for several customers.

Ravi has over two decades of experience working with data modeling and simulation and machine learning in engineering design, manufacturing, energy, aerospace, life sciences, healthcare, and other areas.

Ravi obtained his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University, US. He obtained his Master’s degree in Applied Mechanics and Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Madras, India.

Avinash Agrahari

Senior Director
Distributed Systems Engineering

Avinash is responsible for delivery management and manages multiple client accounts at Impetus. He leads a team of high-performing engineers for end-to-end product development, including requirement analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and production support.

Avinash has more than two decades of experience in product development. He has a Master’s degree in Computer Science (M. Sc.) and Business Administration (MBA) from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, India.

Avinash lives in Indore with his family. He enjoys reading books and exploring new technologies.

Prashant Jain

Senior Director
Delivery and Customer Success

Prashant leads strategic and software development initiatives for various client engagements in the US. He has significantly contributed towards successful product development and operationalization for customers across multiple verticals like telecom, banking, finance, and enterprise mobility.

Prashant holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Government Engineering College, Jabalpur, India. He started his career as a product development engineer in the automobile industry before moving to IT industry.

Prashant enjoys reading, watching movies and spending time with family. He lives in Richmond, VA, with his wife and two children.

Rajani Nair

Senior Director
Data Engineering

Rajani leads the Data Engineering practice. She joined Impetus in 2011 and is responsible for one of the largest BFSI accounts. Over the last decade, she has been responsible for strategizing, planning, and delivering large-scale big data customer projects.

A certified SAFe Program Consultant and Agile coach, Rajani is adept in building and mentoring large data engineering teams. She has also played a pivotal role in building the Bengaluru development center.

Rajani has 20 years of extensive experience building modern data lakes, batch and real-time stream processing, and data analytics and predictive modeling.

Rajani holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Computer Technology from Watumull Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India. She is a trained classical dancer and lives in Bengaluru, India, with her husband and two daughters.

Shilpi Saxena

Senior Director
Data Engineering

Shilpi is responsible for managing multiple cross-functional, complex projects involving data platform modernization and cloud adoption. She leads a team of high-performing engineers to ensure end-to-end project management for several Fortune 100 customers.

Shilpi is an author and a technology evangelist skilled in designing and implementing enterprise-grade data solutions. With two decades of experience, she has worked across multiple domains like IoT, healthcare, telecom, travel and aviation, fintech, manufacturing, etc.

Shilpi holds a Master’s degree in Computer Application from Guru Nanak Dev University, India.

She is a yoga enthusiast and a voracious reader. She lives in NOIDA, India, with her husband and son.

Shirish Bhale

Senior Director
DevOps

Shirish leads DevOps practice and manages a multi-disciplinary team. He is passionate about delivering best technology solutions and his role is to enhance delivery value by developing scalable, resilient, and secured systems.

Shirish has more than two decades of experience in developing enterprise applications across all verticals and has made a significant contribution towards creating technology accelerators, streamlining processes, and continuously innovating to improve deliveries. As an Agile evangelist and certified SAFe program consultant, he also mentors teams on Agile enablement and transformation.

Shirish holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering and Master’s degree in Business Administration from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore, India.

Abhishek Singh

Senior Director
Human Empowerment

Abhishek started his journey at Impetus in 2015. He leads the human empowerment team to attract, develop, and retain talent at Impetus. He has cultivated a strong and inclusive culture where diverse, bright, and high-performing people thrive.

Abhishek has helped create a shared vision of the future for all employees that fuels self-motivation and passion. He has led the positioning of Impetus as an employer of choice and has created and evolved practices, policies, and processes that ensure exceptional employee experience.

An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, Delhi; Abhishek brings in more than 19 years of experience.

Vaneeta Malhotra

Director
Human Empowerment

Vaneeta heads Impetus’ human resources function for North America. She is responsible for attracting and retaining the top talent and building an inclusive, empowering, and high integrity work environment.

Vaneeta has nearly two decades of rich and diverse experience leading people function in fast growing companies across all facets including global recruiting, people operations, employee engagement and organizational effectiveness. Prior to joining Impetus, she has worked with some of the best companies across multiple sectors like IT, consulting and FMCG, leading and co-leading human resource teams at various growth phases, bringing her deeper understanding of cross-cultural nuances and culture-specific motivators.

Vaneeta is passionate about people development and is a certified life coach. As an avid yoga and meditation practitioner and trainer, she has enabled executives with balancing life strategies.

Vaneeta has received her Ph.D. in transformational leadership from Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and her MBA from IAMT.

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