The Elevar Panel

The Elevar Panel comprises specialists and experts, who bring unique knowledge and skills that complement the Elevar team’s. The Panel members have a mix of VC, capital market, structuring, human resources and entrepreneurship experience, as well as a unique perspective into the ecosystem. They resonate deeply with Elevar and have dedicated time to engage with us and our entrepreneurs to help connect the economic resilience and vibrancy of low income and underserved communities with capital markets.

ELEVAR PANEL MEMBERS ASSIST WITH THE FOLLOWING:

Enabling Elevar to fulfil its mission and investor returns by providing perspective on its investing thesis and investing activities

Giving advice related to Elevar’s short to medium term strategy and fundraising perspectives

Assisting Elevar with ecosystem connections to continue building its brand as a leading impact investor 

PANEL MEMBERS

R.Ramaraj

Ramaraj has been a Senior Advisor to Elevar since 2014. Ramaraj is a serial entrepreneur who has been involved in ventures in IT, cellular technology and the Internet. His last venture was Sify, where he was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Sify was the first Indian Internet Company to list on NASDAQ National Market in the US (NASDAQ –SIFY). He was recognized as the ‘Evangelist of the Year’ at the India Internet World Convention in September 2000 and was also voted the IT Person of the year (2000 and 2001), in a CNET.com poll in India. In 2010, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) recognized him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for nurturing the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and inspiring and mentoring numerous entrepreneurs. Prior to Elevar, he was the Senior Advisor at Sequoia Capital. He is a Member of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Ramaraj is on the board of Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), a Not-for-Profit organization. OGQ is committed to bridging the gap between the best athletes in India and the best athletes in the world thus helping Indian athletes to win Olympic Gold medals. He is the first Indian to be invited to the Board of Directors of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) where he served for six years as an Independent Director. He was a member of the Global Board of Trustees of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

R. Ramaraj holds a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from the University of Madras and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He enjoys spending time studying the Vedanta philosophy with a desire to apply this ancient but time transcending philosophy in daily life.

Ajit Abraham

Ajit is a Human Resources (HR) professional with nearly 40 years of rich and varied strategic and operational HR experience in a range of challenging environments. He has worked with well-established companies across different sectors – Murugappa Group, Birlasoft, Eicher Motors (Royal Enfield) as well as with companies in their formative / early days like Mahindra Holidays & Resorts, Mobil Oil Corporation’s South Asian operations, Sify Ltd and Ad2pro. He has also been a Business Manager and an Entrepreneur, which enables him to understand the business needs of organizations and develop appropriate business-aligned people strategies and interventions.

Ajit’s experience covers the entire gamut of people practices including organizational design and restructuring, building innovative & robust compensation practices, recruitment, career and succession planning, retention strategies, putting together high performing leadership teams and formulating appropriate HR policies & processes to drive performance in organizations.

Ajit holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from the Madras School of Social Work, and an Advance Diploma in Human Resources from the University of Manchester. He holds a training certification from the Industrial Training Society, United Kingdom.

Dilip James

Dilip has over 35 years of management experience in Retail, Distribution and IT enabled consumer & service businesses. Over the past ten years, he has been a venture partner & strategic advisor with Accel. In this role, Dilip provided strategic & operating support to various companies in Accel’s growth portfolio (notably BookMyShow, Agrostar, Collectabilia, Blackbuck etc.) and served as observer on their boards. Prior to this, for two years he was Executive VP & COO at Reliance Retail, responsible for marketing and operations of the Wholesale and Distribution formats. In the nineties he worked for seven years with one of India’s top business houses – the RPG group – in various CXO level positions at group companies Spencer and Saregama. He was part of the core team at Spencer & Co that spearheaded setting up the first organized retail formats in India – Foodworld, Music World and Health & Glow.

Subsequently as an entrepreneur, he was cofounder of the network infrastructure management company, Netsol. He built Netsol into India’s largest privately held network infrastructure player with over 1200 technical staff, which in 2005 was acquired by IBM Global Services.

Dilip blends strategic and operational understanding of consumer / retail business as well as application of technology across businesses. In the past he has been a contributor on matters of business & topical interest to leading financial dailies. He has served as director on the Board of one of India’s leading Microfinance Institutions, on behalf of a global social sector fund. He holds a B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT(BHU). Dilip is an avid squash player and loves trekking in the hill ranges when time permits.

Susana Garcia Robles

Susana is a Senior Partner at Capria Ventures and Executive Advisor to the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America (LAVCA). She has 22 years of experience being at the forefront of innovation, entrepreneurship and high impact investing; building bridges between countries and regions to improve dynamic ecosystems worldwide; and supporting high growth entrepreneurship among women in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Previously, she worked at the Inter-American Development Bank where she was Chief Investment Officer and Gender Initiatives Coordinator at the IDB Lab. Since 1999, Susana Garcia-Robles has been the principal architect of IDB Lab’s seed / VC investment program as well as its high impact entrepreneurship and angel investment / women economic empowerment strategies. 

Susana is a co-founder of the  Argentinean VC / PE association and the Colombian VC / PE association. She also serves on multiple boards of directors of VC funds and foundations, including on the Advisory Boards of the Brazilian VC / PE association , ForoMET, the Future Perfect Ventures Fund, and the CITES company builder / fund.  She serves on the  Board of Directors of Village Capital and in the investment committee of the Bancoldex Fund of Funds (Colombia) and the Cofide Fund of Funds (Peru).

In 2012 she co-founded Wexchange, the first networking platform and pitch competition for LAC women STEMpreneurs which has dramatically improved women’s access to funding. In 2019 she co-founded WeInvest Latam, a platform for women fund managers who have LATAM as one of their regions for investment.

Ms. Garcia-Robles has Master’s degrees in Philosophy and Education by the Universidad Catolica of Argentina and in International Relations with a concentration on International Economic Policies by Columbia University.

Javier Díaz Fajardo

Javier currently serves as CEO of Bancoldex, Colombia´s business development bank. He has more than 25 years of experience in the financial markets of Latin America. Javier has transformed Bancoldex´s business model from a second-tier lender of commercial banks to a direct lender of Colombian enterprises; and through the Covid-19 pandemic, he has launched over 50 lines of credit for micro, small, medium enterprises with longer tenors and grace periods, reduced interest rates and government-funded repayment guaranties.

From January 2018 to January 2019, Javier Díaz Fajardo served as CEO of the Renta 4 Global trust company. Between 2013 and 2017 he held the positions of Vice President of Business Development and Chief Operating Officer of the Colombian Stock Exchange, where he actively participated in the transformation of the business model and advanced the first fintech for the financing of SMEs through capital markets.

Previously, he served as Vice President of Investor Relations for Grupo Aval. Before joining Grupo Aval, he founded and acted as CEO of Andes Capital, an investment fund in Colombia. Until 2007, he served as Chief Counsel for the IDB’s Multilateral Investment Fund. 

Javier is a member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows, Silicon Valley’s premier venture capital and entrepreneurship network, and he is also a founding member of Colombia´s corporate governance institute. He has served on 11 boards of directors and teaches Financial System: History, Strategy and Leadership at CESA, Colombia’s leading business school.

Andrés Cerisola

Andrés is Chairman of the Board of EMTV, a family holding company with an investment focus on technology, and a further emphasis on B2B SaaS companies. He is also vice chairman of IC Ventures, a private investment vehicle with a similar subject matter focus but investing in seed and pre series A rounds.

Andrés is a member of the Board Of Directors (and former Chair) of Endeavor Uruguay, and a member of the Board of Directors of CEAL (Latin American Business Council), Techo / Teto, FES and the Solis Theatre Foundation.

Previously, Andrés served as Managing Partner till 2017 for FERRERE, one of the top 3 law firms of Spanish speaking Latin America, a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of the Americas in New York, Chairman of the Closely Held and Growing Business Enterprises Committee of the International Bar Association, and a Director of the Uruguay-United States Chamber of Commerce.