Umesh Sachdev

Co-founder and CEO

Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder, and CEO of Uniphore, is a modern-day entrepreneur with a passion for technologies that have massive societal impact. Umesh co-founded Uniphore with Ravi Saraogi to bridge the communication gap between man and machine using voice and speech.

Umesh was globally recognized in 2016 as one of the ten ‘Next Generation Leaders’ by Time Magazine. The MIT Tech Review recognized him as one of the ‘Innovators Under 35’. He has been conferred with the title of ‘Innovative Entrepreneur’ by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP). Umesh holds patents in Speech Recognition Technologies and Voice Biometrics and is the author of many technical papers.

Umesh is an alumnus of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, and also a renowned ‘TED Talk’ speaker.

Annie Weckesser

CMO + People

As chief marketing and people officer, Annie leads all aspects of Uniphore’s global marketing and communications, as well as, talent strategy and management. Prior to joining Uniphore, Annie was part of the leadership team at NIO, a next generation car company, leading US communications from startup through IPO. Previously, Annie held various strategic communications and marketing roles for the global technology giant Cisco for nine years. Throughout her career, she has counselled and partnered with some of the world’s most senior corporate and government leaders and their teams.

Ravi Saraogi

Co-founder and President APAC

Ravi, Co-founder & President-APAC, leads Sales, Delivery and Customer Success for Uniphore. His passion for mobile learning applications and technologies found traction when Uniphore was founded. Ravi and Umesh envisioned building solutions that give more power to human speech.

He has vast experience in directing technology teams in initiatives spanning mobile theft security, wireless network development, and mobile learning applications. Ravi is currently an active member of the Mobile Payment Forum of India (MPFI), where he identifies and develops business opportunities in the field of mobile payments. He is known for his excellent analytic skills, dexterity in problem resolution, and proclivity for driving operational excellence. Ravi is an alumnus of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology.

Karen Smith

Chief Revenue Officer

Karen Smith is Chief Revenue Officer at Uniphore. Bringing nearly 25 years of experience to this role, Karen is responsible for scaling the worldwide sales organization to support the company’s growth initiatives.

Prior to Uniphore, Karen served as VP of Worldwide Sales at Directly, Inc. a CX Automation AI platform provider, where she was responsible for rapid growth of enterprise customers. Karen has held positions as VP of Sales/US and Asia at TTech, Head of US Sales at Convergys and VP of Sales at Genesys. Karen has dedicated her career to developing sales teams focused on customer experience, contact center technology and artificial intelligence.

Throughout her career she has mentored rising sales professionals and is an outspoken advocate of women in leadership. Karen currently resides in San Francisco with her husband, Steve.

Mary Ann Bianco

Chief Customer Officer

As Chief Customer Officer, Mary Ann leads all aspects of Customer Experience and Customer Success through the entire customer lifecycle from onboarding and implementation to managed services, renewal and customer advocacy.

Mary Ann is recognized in the industry as a Customer Experience and SaaS service delivery leader with deep experience in building long term C-level customer relationships, and driving Customer Success, Delivery, Support and Partnerships functions. Prior to joining Uniphore, as Vice President of Customer Success for Oracle’s Cloud SaaS applications business she led the transformation from on-prem to cloud SaaS building a high-touch customer success model. Previously, she was part of the leadership team at Siemens.

Mary Ann is passionate about supporting women in the advancement of their career and a champion for Women Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives. She has served on the boards of three non-profit organizations including her current role as Vice Chair for Watermark. She is also a peer mentor at the Bishop Ranch Intelligence Innovation Accelerator, an early stage AI accelerator. She holds a Masters Degree (ED.M) in Education Administration from Boston University and a Bachelor of Science from Slippery Rock University.

Jafar H Syed

Sr. Vice President and Chief Strategy & Growth Officer

As Chief Strategy and Growth officer, Jafar leads all strategic and growth initiatives for Uniphore including partnerships and alliances.

Prior to Uniphore, Jafar led the Global BPO’s CX business at NTT Data. Previously, he led Dell Services’ European and Australian BPO business based in Peterborough, UK. Jafar has over 20 years of experience in CX and Contact Centers. He has held senior leadership positions for companies such as NTT Data, Dell, IBM, GE and VFS. He has led large teams in Sales, Practice, Operations, Vendor Management and Solution Design.

Jafar has lived and worked in the US, UK, Dubai, Philippines, China and India. He is an ardent lover of history and spends much of his spare time reading and traveling.

Samith Ramachandran

Vice President and Head of Products & Engineering

Samith Ramachandran is responsible for overall Product & Technology Strategy and Execution at Uniphore, including Product Management, Product Engineering, Core Tech R&D and Product Operations.

Samith comes with over 22 years of rich and diverse experience in Software Product Engineering and Service Delivery. Prior to Uniphore, his has worked with Siemens (now Nokia Solutions), Subex and Flytxt primarily in Software Product Engineering roles.

Samith holds a degree in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Kerala. Bred in Telecoms Tech, Big Data Analytics and ML, he found his passion for Conversational AI and Speech Tech at Uniphore. He is also an avid foodie and gourmet at heart and loves to explore-cook-eat-write world cuisine.

Satyabodh Varkur

Vice President – Delivery

Satya is responsible for Delivery and Operations for Uniphore. Satya leads a team of Speech Engineers, Business Analysts and Delivery Professionals.

He has 20+ years of professional experience in Program Management, Delivery Management, IT Ops and Pre-Sales support. During his earlier stints with Oracle and Infosys, Satya played a significant role in building and scaling global delivery teams across geographies.

Nothing excites Satya more than when a client expresses its satisfaction over a well-executed project. The constant desire to improve and the ultimate need to meet client expectations in delivery is what drives him and his teams.

Siddharth Hosangadi

Vice President – Sales (India)

Siddharth Hosangadi leads India sales at Uniphore. His focus is to grow the India business and establish world class customer-facing processes at Uniphore.

Prior to joining Uniphore, Siddharth founded GoPush Consulting, a Sales Consulting, Training and Partnering Services company. He is an accomplished Business Leader with over 20 years of Sales and Sales leadership experience. Previously, he was with Oracle India as the Country Head for their India ERP Business and with SAP India for nearly a decade in various sales and leadership roles. Siddharth has also worked with Satyam and Ness Global Services.

Siddharth holds an MBA degree from Mumbai University and B.E in Chemical Engineering from UDCT. He lectures on Bhagavad Gita and practical spirituality in his spare time.

Bharat Vijayaraghavan

Director – Marketing & Demand Generation

Bharat leads the marketing team at Uniphore and is responsible for all marketing and go-to-market functions including brand and digital, product marketing, field marketing and demand generation, and marketing operations.

He brings over 20 years of marketing and strategy experience and has held marketing leadership roles at top enterprise technology companies including Unisys, Wipro and Oracle.  Bharat started his management career in strategy consulting with Booz & Company (now Strategy&) and in venture capital with Wachovia’s venture investing group.

Bharat is an alumnus of the University of Michigan and has completed his MBA from the Ross School of Business. He also holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. He is an avid golfer who prefers to spend weekend mornings on the course.

Subhash Kothuru

Vice President – Product Management

Subhash is responsible for Product Management at Uniphore. He is a technology executive with 20+ years experience in developing and executing business and product strategy; building scalable global teams; developing and optimizing organizational processes and infrastructure. Prior to Uniphore, Subhash led product management for the mid-market contact center and Workforce Optimization portfolio at Avaya; was part of the core management team at KnoahSoft, Inc. leading it from a bootstrap startup to a profitable entity and a successful acquisition by Avaya.

Subhash has an MBA from University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business, a Masters in Information Systems and Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. Subhash enjoys the outdoors and loves to cook in his free time

Umesh Sachdev

Co-founder and CEO

Umesh Sachdev, Co-founder, and CEO of Uniphore, is a modern-day entrepreneur with a passion for technologies that have massive societal impact. Umesh co-founded Uniphore with Ravi Saraogi to bridge the communication gap between man and machine using voice and speech.

Umesh was globally recognized in 2016 as one of the ten ‘Next Generation Leaders’ by Time Magazine. The MIT Tech Review recognized him as one of the ‘Innovators Under 35’. He has been conferred with the title of ‘Innovative Entrepreneur’ by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP). Umesh holds patents in Speech Recognition Technologies and Voice Biometrics and is the author of many technical papers.

Umesh is an alumnus of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, and also a renowned ‘TED Talk’ speaker.

Nagaraja Prakasam

Board Member

Nagaraja Prakasam is an angel investor, and the founder of Indian Angel Network. He focuses on entities that he believes will make a difference. Prakasam has more than two decades of global experience, including ten years in the US, where he closely worked with startups that were finding their feet. As a full time angel investor, he has invested in ten start-ups and seen three exits. Prakasam believes in a hands-on approach and travels extensively in rural areas to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs first hand. Having personally mentored around a thousand startups, Prakasam is sought after as a thought leader in the impact space for conferences, roundtables on CSR, incubators, venture funds and aid agencies.

Prakasam currently resides in Bangalore. He holds a B.E. degree from Thiagarajar College of Engineering in India and an MBA degree from the San Diego/Kennesaw State University, United States.

Baskar Subramaniam

Board Member

Baskar Subramanian is an industry veteran with over 25 years of thought leadership in Unified Communications, Customer Interaction Management and Collaboration technologies.

Subramaniam is the Founder of Servion Global Solutions Limited, a global end-to-end consulting led specialist in proactive customer experience in 1992. The company pioneered voice automation and computer telephony technologies for many enterprises in India, Middle East, Asia Pacific and the United States. At Servion, he helped build a strategic relationship with Avaya and Cisco, delivering value to all stakeholders involved. He is also the Founder and Board Member in Green Quotient Systems, a technology venture in the Cloud Computing, DevOps and Mobility space.

Subramaniam holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from REC-Trichy, and a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas.

Prashasta Seth

Board Member

Prashasta Seth is a specialist in investment strategies, generating stock ideas and compiling incisive research reports. In his career spanning 16 years in the financial services industry, he has successfully managed several assets and investor portfolios. His previous stints have included positions at J.P. Morgan, London and Irevna, a Standard & Poor’s company.

He is an engineer by trade, having earned his Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

Ranjith Menon

Board Member

Ranjith Menon is Executive Director at Chiratae Ventures India Advisors. He has been in the industry since 2000 and in the venture investment advisory since 2007.

Prior to Chiratae Ventures, Ranjith worked with Cyient (earlier Infotech Enterprises), India’s premier Design Engineering and GIS Company. As Manager-Marketing he played a key role in conceptualizing and launching new service offerings for the Aerospace vertical, which is one of the largest offshore Aerospace practices out of India. Earlier in his career, Ranjith has served as a stress test engineer at Infotech Enterprises and also gained shop floor experience at Bharat Earth Movers Limited, India’s largest earth moving equipment manufacturers.

Ranjith is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). He holds a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University and an MBA from the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

Ravi Saraogi

Co-founder and President APAC

Ravi, Co-founder & President-APAC, leads Sales, Delivery and Customer Success for Uniphore. His passion for mobile learning applications and technologies found traction when Uniphore was founded. Ravi and Umesh envisioned building solutions that give more power to human speech.

He has vast experience in directing technology teams in initiatives spanning mobile theft security, wireless network development, and mobile learning applications. Ravi is currently an active member of the Mobile Payment Forum of India (MPFI), where he identifies and develops business opportunities in the field of mobile payments. He is known for his excellent analytic skills, dexterity in problem resolution, and proclivity for driving operational excellence. Ravi is an alumnus of Jaypee Institute of Information Technology.

John T. Chambers

Chief Guru

John Chambers founded JC2 Ventures to help disruptive startups from around the world innovate and scale. Chambers believes in the development of startup nations and hence, invests in companies across categories and geographies leading to market transitions. Airware, Aspire Food Group, Dedrone, OpenGov, Pindrop, Privoro, Sprinklr, and Uniphore are a few such examples. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Airware, OpenGov, Pindrop, and Sprinklr.

Prior to founding JC2 Ventures, Chambers was CEO, Chairman and Executive Chairman at Cisco Systems.

In addition to investing in and mentoring startups, he is focused on promoting entrepreneurship, gender equality, and accelerating overall new business creation around the world. Additionally, his role as the Chairman of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) allows him to work closely with business and government leaders in both countries to create meaningful opportunities that have the power to change the lives of citizens.

Aegis Graham Bell Awards

Winner in “Innovation in Data Science” category for “auMina^TM” at the 9th edition of Aegis Graham Bell Award 2019

Express IT Awards

Awarded the best product company in the Analytics Solutions category for 2018 at the 6th edition of Express IT Awards

Gartner

• Gartner names Uniphore as an Interaction Analytics vendor – Customer Service and CRM App Software in APAC in “The Gartner CRM Vendor Guide, 2018” (Analyst: Nadine LeBlanc et al, Published: 31 May 2018).
• Gartner names Uniphore as a Fast-growing digital service technology providers in its report titled “Market Trends: Customer Experience, Trust and Retention Define Opportunities for Customer Management Digital Services” (Analyst: TJ Singh, Published: 19 June 2018).
• Gartner names Uniphore as a Sample Vendor in its report titled “Hype Cycle for Contact Center Infrastructure, 2018” (Analyst: Drew Kraus, Published: 8 August 2018).
• Gartner names Uniphore as a Sample Vendor in its report titled “Hype Cycle for Data Science and Machine Learning, 2018”. (Analysts: Peter Krensky, Jim Hare, Published: 23 July 2018).
• Gartner names Uniphore as a Sample Vendor in its report titled “Hype Cycle for CRM Customer Service and Customer Engagement, 2018”. (Analyst: Olive Huang, Published: 25 July 2018).
• Gartner recognizes Uniphore as a vendor for Interaction Analysis – Customer Service in the Asia/Pacific – The Gartner CRM Vendor Guide, 2017
• Gartner report titled Predicts 2017: CRM Customer Service and Support (published Nov, 2016) mentions Uniphore as a regional vendor capable of supporting regional Indian languages
• Gartner selects Uniphore as a Cool Vendor for Human-Machine Interface (2013)

Forrester

Forrester recognizes Uniphore as a “growth stage” vendor in its report titled “New Tech: AI-Fueled Speech Analytics Solutions, Q2 2018”

Lumenlab

Winner of Collab – MetLife’s inaugural corporate – startup engagement program (2017)

Deloitte

Deloitte recognizes Uniphore as Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific (2013)

Deloitte recognizes Uniphore as Technology Fast 50 India (2014)

Deloitte recognizes Uniphore as Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific (2014)

Deloitte recognizes Uniphore as Technology Fast 50 India (2015)

Deloitte recognizes Uniphore as Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific (2015)

Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan names Uniphore as the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year for its Speech-based Enterprise Mobility Solutions (2012)

Asia-Pacific Customer Contact Solution Customer Value Leadership Award (2018)

IDG Ventures

Uniphore receives the Pride of India Awards by IDG Ventures (2015)

Nasscom

AI Game Changer Awards (2018)

League of 10 – NASSCOM Emerge 50 Awards (2017)

NASSCOM and Frost & Sullivan featured Uniphore’s VoiceNet in Indian Enterprise Software Product Excellence Matrix – On Accelerated Growth Path (2014)

League of 10 – NASSCOM Emerge 50 Awards (2013)

London & Partners

London & Partners recognizes Uniphore amongst India’s Top 20 Emerging Global Companies (2016)

Red Herring

Red Herring short-lists Uniphore for its Top 100 Asia Award(2012)

CII Connect

Umesh Sachdev, Founder & CEO, received the “Exemplary Application of IT Award” at the CII CONNECT 2014 Awards

EmTech India

Umesh Sachdev, CEO & Co-Founder, recognized with India Edition of MIT Technology Review’s ‘Innovators Under 35’ (2016)

The Smart CEO Startup50

Best Enterprise Tech Startup of the Year by The Smart CEO – Startup50 awards (2016)

RIM

Research in Motion highlights Uniphore as one of India’s top Enterprise Mobility Vendors (2012)