Eminent Jury Panel

V V Ranganathan
(Honourable Jury Chair – SSF Excellence Awards)
Chairman – Audit Committee, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India;
Independent Director – Corporate Boards;
Former Sr Partner – EY

Ranga, as he is fondly called, is a highly accomplished Finance Professional with over 40 years of experience in India and overseas with a variety of portfolios, an Independent Director on Corporate Boards and Chairman of Audit Committee. He is an Author & promoter of young writers, and has also authored & published three Books.

He Co-Founded The Entrepreneur of the Year Programs in India & Monaco. He served EY India for over ten years as senior partner – Country Leader for Strategic Growth Markets & Country Head for Quality & Risk Management.

He is an advisor to independent directors and corporate boards/ Private Equity Firms. He is also actively engaged in Commercial Arbitration & Conciliation. He is an expert in dispute resolution of complex commercial contracts through conciliation process & has settled several cases/disputes of large enterprises with total claims of over 4 Billion US Dollars – INR 37,000 Crores +

He has co-founded many ventures with young talents which are at various stages of growth. Some of his ventures are social enterprises. He constantly strives to build Capacities & Accreditation for Social Entrepreneurs, and is involved with large foundations that run hundreds of schools all over India as well leading a focused program on supporting economically weak but academically strong students. Keen observer of the entrepreneurial community, he provides Entrepreneurial Insights, and has personally interacted with over two hundred entrepreneurs globally over the past several years. Has contributed significantly to the study and research on the subject of entrepreneurship. Has been a Strategic Investor in a number of start-ups. He is a Member of Governing Board of Bharti Airtel Foundation, established in 2000 with a vision “To help underprivileged children and young people of our country realize their potential“ and its activities currently impacts the lives of 1.9 million students in rural India.

Ranga was presented The Sankara Ratna Award by Sankara Nethralaya, Chennai, the world famous charitable eye hospital. This award was instituted in 2002 to recognise and honour distinguished individuals/institutions with an impeccable record of supporting this great Eye Hospital & Research Centre and contributing significantly to its cause & philosophy.

Ram S Ramasundar
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Former Partner, Alexander Hughes; Ex-CFO, Ranbaxy;
Ex-MD & CEO, Electrolux; Ex-ED, PepsiCo

Ramsundar, former CFO of Hindustan Unilever, is Partner at Alexander Hughes. He is a Finance & Governance Professional. He has over 4 decades of experience in organizations such as HUL (as CFO), PepsiCo India (as Director – Operations), Electrolux (as MD/CEO), Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited (as President & CFO) , DLF Hotels (as Senior Executive Director) and Jindal ITF Limited (as Group Director – Finance & Strategy), Blue River Capital (as MD), Unilever Exports (UK) and PepsiCo (USA & Greece).

After his super-annuation from Jindal ITF Limited, he has been associated with Blue River Capital (a Mauritius registered Private Equity Firm) as Managing Director for the last four years and involved in managing the operations of the portfolio companies and administration of the private equity fund. Prior to this, he has also worked at Unilever Exports (UK) and PepsiCo ((USA and Greece).

In terms of his academic background, he is a commerce graduate (Madras University), Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary and a Management Graduate ( Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad), having qualified with distinction and merit rank.

He has interests in Music, Sports and Books and has written articles and commentaries. His wife, Geetha is a post graduate and currently a home maker. He has one daughter, Sadhana, who graduated in Economics from Grinnell College, IOWA, USA and is currently working with KFC (Yum! Group) in Dallas, USA.

T Chandrasekar
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Chief Financial Officer, Greaves Electric Mobility

Chandrasekar (Chandru), former Vice President – Finance & CFO, IBM India/ South Asia, CFO – Greaves Electric Mobility, has over 34 years of experience in automobile, financial services and IT industries, in varied areas like financial planning, statutory and management accounting, costing of products & services, business controls, financial risk management, procurement, administration, resource and capacity management, strategy, etc.

Chandru was with IBM for over 20 years and held several finance and operations leadership positions including that of CFO, IBM India/ South Asia Domestic Business, COO for Global Business Services, IBM Growth Markets based in Singapore, CFO for IBM Daksh Business Process Services and finance lead for IBM’s global delivery missions located in India. Post the IBM tenure, he joined Birlasoft as the CFO for 2+ years and then moved to Greaves Electric Mobility. He has also worked for almost 12 years in several Indian companies in the automobile, financial services and IT industries.

He loves challenges and enjoy creating and working with high performance teams.

Vikram Tandon
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Group Chief Human Resources Officer, Adani Group

Vikram is a seasoned Human Resources professional with over three decades of experience across a range of diverse businesses, geographies, and cultures. His expertise lies in thoughtful management of the intersection of strategy, talent, and organization culture, with extensive outcomes in organizational effectiveness, talent management, succession planning and leadership development.

Prior to joining the Adani Group, Vikram was the Head of Human Resources at HSBC India, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations. Before HSBC, Vikram was at the American International Group as the Regional Human Resources Director for the Mediterranean, Middle East and South Asia region and participated in AIG’s rapid growth through several startup joint ventures and acquisitions. His career also included several years at Inchcape Plc, Dubai, the ANZ Grindlays Bank, India, and Indian Hotels Company Ltd, where he has held multiple roles in HR.

Vikram holds a master’s degree in Human Resources from XLRI Jamshedpur and has certifications in Leading Change, Management & Innovation from the Harvard Business School. Vikram was the past President of the National HRD Network, Mumbai Chapter and has been recognized as one of the top 10 HR Leaders in India by Startup Lanes.

Urs-Ulrich Katzenstein
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Senior Advisor & Head – Business Development & Transformation – Continental Europe, Quintes Global

Urs-Ulrich Katzenstein is a seasoned business leader with over 3 decades of international experience and about 20 years in global leadership/ management roles, including a pivotal role as the Managing Director of Metro Global Business Services where he led a team of 700 colleagues, achieved over 40% growth in 2.5 years, fostered leadership talents for succession planning, demonstrated mastery in automation, digitalization, and robotics, leading to increased efficiency by 25%.

He has led large digital transformation and strategic initiatives like group-wide migration to SAP HANA.

Over his long career, he had worked with some marquee companies across the globe like Bell Food Group AG, Metro AG and before joining Quintes Global, he co-founded Gallery Katzenstein a company that Promoted contemporary Chinese Artists to Europe.  He brings comprehensive knowledge in areas ranging from large scale Transformation & Change Management, Governance & effective Program Mgmt., Offshoring & Shared Services, Digital Strategy & IT to Internal Audit, paired with a visionary approach & passion for innovation.“

He is skilled at developing new approaches and building highly motivated teams, he is used to working in a multicultural environment with professional experience in different countries and with people from different backgrounds. He values teamwork, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit as well as to reach goals with a positive attitude.

Urs is based out of Basel, Switzerland, and has recently joined Quintes Global as a Senior Advisor and Head – Business Development & Transformation – Continental Europe.

Ranjeev Lodha
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Former Executive Director & CFO, Huhtamaki

Ranjeev Lodha, Chartered Accountant, has over 3 decades of experience in the field of Corporate Finance. Ranjeev started his corporate career with Tata Chemicals Ltd where he served the most across multiple roles in Finance. He has also worked at Mahindra and Mahindra Limited and Huhtamaki India Ltd. His experience ranges across areas such as Mergers and Divestments, Financial

Reporting and Consolidation, Finance Shared services, Treasury, Controlling, implementation of ERP systems, strategic finance, and investor relations. His last role, prior to seeking retirement, was at Huhtamaki India Ltd, a packaging company, as Executive Director and CFO.

Presently, Ranjeev serves on the Boards of IVP Ltd, a Chemical company which is part of the Allana Group, that caters to the foundry chemicals, coatings, composites & insulation resin industries and Villgro Innovations Foundation, a company that incubates social enterprises primarily across climate action, healthcare and agriculture. He is also associated with Tatachem Golden Jubilee Foundation, where he is responsible for the day-to-day administration and governance of the Trust.

Raghav Rao
Honourable Jury Member, SSF Excellence Awards & Recognition
Former COO, Deutsche Bank; EX-CAO, Lazard India; Former Director Fidelity Investments

Raghav Rao, an accomplished senior banker with over 25 years of experience in the Banking & Financial services, across the competency landscape of Investment Banking, Global In-House Center (Captive), KPO’s, has led organisations through strong leadership, effective governance, seamless execution and achieved sustained growth in value and size, in an ever evolving global regulatory environment.

Raghav’s contributions include setting up greenfield sites, platforms and teams, research & analytic hubs, incubating new ideas and backing it up with enhanced delivery teams, and driving rapid growth through innovation. He has also successfully led transformational agendas and sustained the growth of large mature organizations across multiple sites.

A chartered accountant with a rich and diverse professional background, Raghav has worked with renowned organizations such as Ford Motors, General Motors, HSBC Investment Banking, Fidelity Investments and Lazard. Most recently, he served as COO and member of the board in Deutsche Bank, managing 17,000+ employes and revenues of US$700 mn across technology, operations, financial control and Risk at 4 locations. Currently, he is CEO and member of Board at Strelitzia Consulting, an initiative in career counselling leveraging edutech.

Over the last 16 years, Raghav has honed his leadership skills with vital roles at various Boards (India & Mauritius) and under direction of the Board, held chair positions of Executive / Operating committees, Risk & Governance committees, Business, Financial, Regulatory, Legal, Compliance Forums and Corporate Societal responsibilities. He actively promoted diversity, inclusion, and employee engagement.

He has also successfully led cross-functional teams with clear result oriented missions in a complex and rapidly changing business environment Some of the niche and complex functions led by him at a global level are Group Strategy, Group Client Relationship Management, Group Governance, Group Corporate Services, Group Transition Risk and Analytics/Reporting Centers of Excellence which involved managing teams located at multiple locations within India and at global sites (Jacksonville, Florida; Birmingham, UK; Manila, Philippines and Colombo, Sri Lanka).

Raghav has been actively involved in Industry thought leadership across banking and financial services peer groups with advocacy, strategic partnership, and skill development. He held positions of national council member of NASSCOM’s GIC and was the Chair for the Mumbai chapter of NASSCOM GIC.

Raghav is a passionate golfer and active at various tournaments