Manu Krishna

Manu is Partner & Managing Director at Aspire Advisors. He has 15 years of experience including a few years in IT and 10 years in management consulting experience in advising clients / PE firms in sectors such as power, electricals, chemicals, aviation, healthcare, technology, and telecom industries. He worked with Bain for over 7 years, most recently as Principal, and earlier with Deloitte. He also has entrepreneurial experience in healthcare.

His focus areas include growth strategy, performance improvement, organization and due diligence. Some of his major assignments include:

• Five year strategic plan: Developed for several business units of one of India’s largest engineering and construction company; Mapped the market evolution and adjacency growth opportunities and laid out the roadmap for the BUs to sustain their leadership. Re-engaged after 2 years for reviewing progress and course correction
• Middle-east growth strategy and PMO: Developed the strategy for the Hydrocarbons business of India’s largest EPC players; Helped the Upstream and the Mid & Downstream BUs
• Asia-Pacific growth strategy for leading Indian healthcare player: Involved building a decision driven organization model, shared services framework, market size estimation, entry/growth strategy, screening of potential M&A targets.
• Full potential growth strategy for pharma services company: Analyzed trends across healthcare by talking to experts and senior management from a wide range of Indian and MNC healthcare and pharma cos and built the business case.
• Growth strategy for a leading Indian telecom player: Developed a 10 year business plan for a pan-India rollout of the next-gen technology.
• Performance Improvement for a leading Indian electrical appliances company: Analysed the operations and identified multiple initiatives across functions to improve performance and reduce costs significantly.
• Organization design and cost reduction strategy: Supported a leading global tech company; Identified redundant activities/functions and process improvement opportunities and optimized spans & layers
• Private Equity/Strategic due diligences: Performed on global as well as Indian targets; For example: on a low-cost Indian airline for a full-service Indian carrier, on a leading IT company for a leading global PE firm.

Manu has a B.Tech in electrical engineering from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Bangalore and LBS.

Anshuman Biyani

Anshuman is an advisor to Aspire Advisors. He is currently part of the leadership team at Genioo, an innovative strategy execution firm, headquartered in Zug, Switzerland. He has diverse experiences in areas such as management consulting (The Boston Consulting Group-BCG), private equity (HSBC) and chemicals manufacturing (Nocil). At BCG, he advised companies on topics ranging from corporate strategy (Business strategy, M&A, Alliance development and management) to operations (lean manufacturing, supply chain, sourcing). His experience spans several industry verticals such as pharmaceuticals, automobiles, construction materials, consumer durables, telecommunications and financial services.

The variety of topics he has worked on with clients across industries is evident from some of his project experiences:

• Growth from rural markets in India: Developed and rolled out rural growth strategy for an Indian telecommunications player across 14 circles
• Turkey market entry: Developed Turkey entry strategy for an Indian industrial goods player
• Alliance strategy / Automobiles: Develop the client’s alliance strategy, with a leading global player and provided support in establishing the alliance to deliver increased business volumes
• Telecom growth strategy in S. Africa: Developed equity story and information memorandum for fund-raising by Indian telecom client in S. Africa
• Business planning / Cement: Developed a five year plan for the ready-mix concrete business of a leading cement manufacturer
• M&A / Consumer durables: Planned and conducted the divestiture process of the consumer durables business of a leading Indian business group
• Micro-marketing / Consumer durables: Systematically exploited key levers to increase market share and contribution for an Indian consumer durables manufacturer
• Supply chain planning process / Consumer durables: Refined the planning process to improve performance of the supply chain; Steered the development of an IT interface to enable the process
• Post-merger integration / Channel synergies: Conducted pilots to test strategy to increase penetration in small markets through multi-brand outlets, in an industry largely characterized by exclusive outlets
• Business plan evaluation /Telecommunications services: Competitive benchmarking of managed services businesses of global telecom companies, to help formulate strategy of an Indian telecom player; Critiqued its business plan for South Africa
• Business model / Diversified trading house: Benchmarked different trading models to aid decision-making with respect to the future role of the international trading arm of a leading Indian business group
• SME strategy / Banking: Developed current account product strategy for a leading Indian public sector bank
• Raw material sourcing / Automobiles: Part of 2-member team responsible for identifying savings of US$5 million on raw materials sourcing for an Indian automobiles manufacturer; Personally identified savings of US$2 million & developed an implementation plan to realize savings

Anshuman is a graduate in chemical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a post-graduate in management from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Vikram Sharma

Vikram is a consultant and senior executive with global track record. He is an Operating Partner with India Value Fund supporting portfolio companies in growing their businesses. He has been an Advisor to Aspire since 2014.
Earlier, he worked with McKinsey for four years in the United States and has led two engineering / manufacturing companies as CEO, launching them into a higher growth orbit in the process.
He has been leading the development and execution of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. His renewable energy focus includes technologies such as solar, biomass and biofuels.

Some of the prominent assignments he has been involved in are:

• Asia manufacturing foot-print / chocolate intermediates manufacturer:Evaluated demand and supply evolution, regulatory and taxation issues, conversion cost and supply chain factors and demand centers to model the optimal future manufacturing foot-print for the client.
• Strategy / European injectables manufacturer: : Conducted a detailed competitive landscape and demand-supply and pricing trends assessment to develop scenarios and strategic options serving as key inputs for future business planning.
• Energy efficiency / various industriesLed energy efficiency projects in various industries including agricultural produce, glass manufacturing, hospitality and infrastructure.
• Restructuring / Office furniture:He led the restructuring and turnaround of India's largest office furniture manufacturing company, initially as a consultant and then as CEO.
• Greenfield manufacturing / hydraulics: Complete startup and P&L responsibility for the India subsidiary of a global hydraulic valve manufacturer which included building a 21-acre facility with a state of the art manufacturing facility and a global R&D center; Took the business from zero to $20million run rate within 18 months. Manufacturing facility was built on lean principles and considered one of the best hydraulics manufacturing facilities in the world with a quality record of zero PPM defects.

Vikram has an MBA from Harvard Business School and Masters in Industrial engineering from University of Wisconsin

Jyoti Kedia

Jyoti is a Partner at Aspire Advisors and leads the Expert-Link initiative for Aspire. She is the Go-To person for identifying topic experts to provide perspectives that help Aspire answer critical business questions for its clients.
She is also a domain expert in the transaction regulatory services with >12 years of experience in the area. She was with PwC and prior to that with RSM Advisory Services (a prominent tax consulting firm in India).

She has worked on corporate restructuring assignments including amalgamations, demergers and group consolidations for several leading Indian corporates. She brings end to end execution capabilities with expertise in conceptualization of restructuring schemes, evaluation of options envisaged from a tax and regulatory perspective including stamp duty, implementation and compliance with statutory requirements.

Some of the assignments she has worked on are:

• Merger of companies: Analyzed and implemented merger of multiple companies into one; merger of a wholly owned subsidiary into the parent company for industrial groups in India as well as for MNCs.
• Demergers of a corporate unit into a separate legal entity: Handled multiple assignments of demerger of a division of a company into a separate company to unlock value for its shareholders across FMCG, Media and Pharma industries.
• Capital reduction for companies: Worked on rationalizing the balance sheet of companies by utilizing reserves to absorb intangibles, currency fluctuations, goodwill on restructuring exercises.
• Streamlining corporate group structure: Conducted a study on streamlining the group structure of a leading FMCG player in India as well as re-aligning the beneficial interest of family members (held in various trusts) in the shares of its listed group entity. Also, separately, conceptualized the realignment of group entities incorporated in about 12 jurisdictions around the world under an Indian holding company engaged in the diamond and jewellery business.

Jyoti is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. She also holds a postgraduate diploma in Securities Law and a Master’s degree in Commerce from Mumbai University.

Leadership team (Domain experts)

Dr. Milind Biyani

Dr. Biyani is a Partner & Managing Director at Aspire Advisors and is a domain expert in the area of pharmaceuticals generics and incremental innovations R&D.
He has more than 30 years of rich experience in driving innovations in pharmaceutical formulations. He has worked with both global and Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Hoechst, Lupin, Zydus Cadila, FDC, Alkem, Shasun, Ajanta Pharma, Raptakos Brett, Plethico, Inga Labs.

Some of the well-known product developments he has been involved in or driven include Carofit, Vitamin B6, Electral, Gatifloxacin, Emflam, Nimesulide OD, Electrobion, Subsyde, Neurobion and Ruffage. He also holds patents for some of these. Besides, he has been instrumental in filing ANDAs for drugs such as Ibuprofen, Carvedilol, Cetirizine, Ranitidine, Nizatidine and Clopidogrel in his organizations in the past.

Key highlights of his work and areas of focus include:

Product development

• Oral solid and liquid, topical and injectable formulations
• Modern medicines, Ayurvedic /herbal and dietary supplements
• NCE to formulations
• New drug delivery systems
• Analytical development
• BE, BA studies and clinical trials
• Patents: Granted 14, Pending 2

Manufacturing

• Site transfers, technology transfers, and method transfer
• Contract Research And Manufacturing services
• Production of solid and liquid dosage forms, topicals and injectables

Regulatory filings and licensing

• Products for US (ANDA, OTC and NDA), Canada, Europe, India and other emerging markets
• Regulatory affairs, ANDA, ANDS, CTD and IND dossiers
• 505(b)(2) type NDA and IND for the same
• Meetings with US FDA and DCGI
• Licensing out, Europlex, US and Canada

Industry contributions

• Publications: 27
• Associations: Member of industry associations such as IPA, IDMA, OPPI; Editor, Chairman for some of the conferences organized by these bodies.

Dr. Biyani holds a PhD in pharmaceutical technology from UDCT, Mumbai and prior to that completed his M. Pharm from Punjab University and B. Pharm from UDCT.