About Us
Ascent Business is one of the leading global technology solutions companies focused on providing innovative solutions for Enterprise Resilience. Headquartered in Singapore, the software product company works as an application solutions provider for compliance and regulatory reporting. Ascent Business continuously works toward enhancing software product offerings in order to stay ahead of the competition especially in the enterprise resilience space where it is the formidable player in India as well as in Asia.
One of the Ascent’s key offerings, AutoBCM is a web-based multi-tenant automated enterprise software with risk mitigation capabilities for managing business continuity and resilience management lifecycles.
Spread across 10 locations globally, Ascent has worked with over 35 clients. It has a presence in the US, Canada, Middle East, Africa, Singapore, and other global markets with a research and development center in India and a marketing and sales hub in Dubai.
Vision
Technologically revolutionizing the fintech industry through digitization, automation and optimized business operations making organizations cost-efficient and process-oriented.
Mission
Developing and deploying world-class innovations dynamically aimed at resolving multiple challenges that organizations face today.
Support
In More Ways Than OneOur comprehensive and in-depth partner programs provide product insight, marketing support, highest accredited training practices in financial processes, technology and BCM.
Future Ready
Simplifying The Cutting-EdgeOur accessible and cost-effective products/services are built on a continually updated backbone of the most cutting edge technology available. Not to mention, our teams consist of some of the industry’s best analysts and experts.
Investment
Valuing Our ClientsWe strive to introduce our clients to multiple avenues for growth and development. This also constitutes our main ethos: viewing our partners as an integral aspect of our global service delivery team.
Board Members
Prof. Viney Sawhney, Chairman
An ex-Citi banker, Viney possesses a large amount of experience in retail & commercial lending. With past entrepreneurial experience, he drives Ascent in terms of strategies and scale-up challenges.
With a Master of Science in Management degree from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, he is currently a finance professor at Harvard University where he has appeared several times in the Dean’s list as a Distinguished Professor.
Kundan Shekhawat, President and CEO
Best known for his dynamic leadership, Kundan Shekhawat, CEO of Ascent is responsible for steering the company to where it is today.
Raised in a humble family and disciplined military background, he is a down to earth visionary with deep rooted values.
He has wide experience in financial services and extensive expertise in Product Development Engineering, strategy and P & L management. With a career spanning 18+ years, his vision was the one that carried Ascent through its successive stages of growth.
A passionate entrepreneur, Kundan’s determination built the organization with a focus on constantly enhancing competitiveness, profitability, customer focus, partnership, branding, corporate values and governance.
Nandini Shekhawat, Director and Member of the Board
A dynamic and versatile individual with several years of experience in a variety of fields, Nandini is an effective leader with distinguished abilities in end-to-end process management, motivating team members, and resolving a variety of different escalated issues.
Skilled in conceptualizing initiatives that enhance process efficiency, her proven skills in team management and a variety of other fields set new parameters of achieving both business and individual goals.
Siddharth Kohli, Member of the Board
Siddharth Kohli is a Chartered Accountant, a Company Secretary and a Corporate Lawyer by profession.
He has in the past worked with organisations like EY, IFCI and RBI. He has been a consultant to the World Bank and has worked extensively on development projects across the South Asia region.
He has led financial and strategic transformations in early to mid stage companies by bringing together corporate best practices and strong governance models.
He is an expert when it comes to investor relations and related transaction advisory.
Pradeep Sagar, Member of the Board
Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants . Completed the examination requirements of The Institute of Company Secretaries. Obtained the CMC – Certified Management Consultant, designation, Canada.
Entrepreneur, relishing the establishment of enterprises and leading them to success.
Co founder and CEO: SAGAR & SAGAR: Partner, set up, incubate, seed and grow enterprises. Currently engaged in ventures in green technologies, education, general trading. We are seeking products and services that would find a market in the Middle East and Africa.
SFC: Invests in mature entities and financial instruments. Our goal is to profit from investment and treasury activities by seeking arbitrage and other opportunities in the short term and in exceptional strategic long term investments.
Shantanu Ghosh, Advisor To The Board
An international leader in the financial management space, Shantanu Ghosh adds value to Ascent with his deep knowledge and experience. His cross-functional and multidisciplinary expertise forms a strong support for our growth. His proficiencies have helped him achieve:
Financial Leadership with Management at board, bank, international and country level.
Board memberships in IdeaSpace Solutions, ING Financial Services, Bharat Overseas Bank and Lokkur Investment Advisors Private Limited
Banking Experience of 38 years including roles as Country Head Retail/SME/ASBU Banking in ING Vysya Bank – Execution of 10 large Mergers (as Board Member, COO, Head of Integration and Advisor)
Steve Cohen, Advisor to the Board
Highly accomplished and polished, forward thinking, transformation, strategic planning and business development-focused expert with extensive advisory services and leadership experience. I develop new industry solutions, strategic plans, drives growth and enterprise sales programs, new business channels, value creation, structures high-performance teams, develops new relationships, and provides access to key, C-level decision makers. Sharply focused at the exciting convergence of risk, treasury, cognitive, cloud, social and real-time intelligence for banks.Excellent communicator who gains the trust and respect of clients by demonstrating global thought leadership, innovation, integrity, honesty, excellence and professionalism. Dynamic, visionary, results oriented, value driven, highly motivated leader with proven record of delivering and exceeding results, pragmatic strategies, flawless execution, out of the box/visionary thinking, and superb access to key decision makers.
I also globally manage key clients which creates value by satisfying client requirements. I manage C-level relationships for new and current business opportunities while maintaining the overall strategy and service delivery of SME’s to client companies.
Specialties:
Very passionate about innovation, business development, strategic planning and developing, nurturing, maintaining, leveraging C-level relationships, spotting and solving complex risk and treasury issues, and architecting solutions with his team of senior Risk and Cognitive SME’s. Maintains C-level access by providing ongoing thought leadership to senior executives, while providing Risk and Treasury Advisory Services, and comprehensive software solutions.
Teamwork and Collaboration | Problem Solving Skills | Open and Unique Communication Style | Deep Market Intelligence | Integrity,Trusted Respected | Thought Leader and Innovator.
I’m very open to networking, collaboration and knocking around ideas.
Gerald Hayden, Advisor to the Board
35+ years experience in both managing Global Financial Services and Insurance – IT and Business Units as well as applying Operational Business Process changes and Technology Solutions. Currently focused on developing and designing “Customer as a Platform”, Robotic Process Automation and API Economy business models. Heavy use of Digitized Marketing, Mobile, Business Process Re-engineering, New Business Models, Fintech threat assessment, Financial Marketplace economic models, Customer Experience Management, Social, Mobile and Analytic Strategies. Large focus on driving Share price factors, achieving lowest cost structures, reducing operating and balance sheet risk.
Former COO, CFO, CIO and CMO for major U.S. Regional Bank (now BofA) and Global FS Insurance Firm. Co-founder of one of the first “Digtized/Virtualized” FinTech Financial Services (Meltife Bank) in the U.S. and achieving profitability in 90 days. 6 time Master Black Belt in 6 Sigma Lean for new Business Process and New Business Model Development.
18 years of Global Consulting – applying/justifying Technology, including Channel Partner Solutions Development, Go To Market, and Client CxO Business Consulting to align IT Investments with Business Strategy Execution. Experienced in Global Regs/Directives and technologies such as ITIL, Basel, Solvency, Sarbox, FFIEC, HIPAA/GLB/DPD and Global Privacy Law.
Selected list of former Clients include Citi Group, Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo, ANZ, Bank of Central America, Aetna, CIGNA, CNP, Banco Chile, Bank Itau, Barclays, UBS, State Farm, Travelers, The Hartford, AIG, SONY LIfe, Lloyds of London, Toyota Japan, Mitsubishi Motors, Honda, General Motors, United Technologies, John Deere and Caterpillar. Internal Clients include Cisco Systems for Quote to Cash, Juniper Networks for Strategic Global Sales and Good Technology for short and longer term revenue sales to drive share Price.
Jai Menon, Mentor
Dr. Menon (www.menonjai.com) is a global technology leader with over three decades of experience spanning the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia across IT, telecom, and media industries.
Having traversed two phases – a researcher inventing deep-tech and corporate leadership – he has entered a third phase of mentoring and entrepreneurship across a broad range of industries. He has held global CIO/CTO and other leadership positions in IBM, AT&T, Airtel, Bharti Enterprises, and HT Media.
A Distinguished Alumnus of IIT-Delhi, he has received several global recognitions such as Global CIO 50 (US), Forbes (US), GSMA (Spain), Telecom Asia (Hong Kong), IDC (Singapore), and NASSCOM (India). He has authored over 35 US patents, 3 European patents, and nearly 100 international research publications. He has also served on several global boards and advisories, including the TM Forum, GSMA, NASSCOM, CII, IBM, Oracle, Teradata, Aricent, Zinnov, and Firstwave Cloud Technology. He has been a member of IEEE, ASME, ACM, and Phi Kappa Phi. Dr. Menon received his MS/Ph.D. from Cornell and BTech (first rank) from IIT-Delhi. He has completed executive management programs from Harvard, Wharton, and Sloan (MIT) business schools.
Atul Kulshreshtha, Strategic Advisor
Atul started his entrepreneurship journey in late 2020 and established GroByz Partners to help businesses transform and get ready for the future, primarily focusing on Digital Enablement & Adoption.
Over the last 3 decades, Atul worked with some of the best global organizations like – Capgemini, Colt Technologies, GE, FIS, American Express, etc., with outstanding leadership and best talent, helping clients on business transformation, growth, and optimization.
Till recently, Atul was Global Account Executive for a portfolio of large strategic Technology accounts, responsible for driving account growth and enhancing client relationships. Before that, Atul was heading the Business Services for India region and leading Capgemini’s Global Shared Services. Atul joined Capgemini following the acquisition of IGATE and initially led the service line integration, transformation, and managed delivery for the global Financial Services portfolio. At IGATE, Atul was the Global BPO Head responsible for driving growth and strategy for their BPO business unit.
Atul is a fellow member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. His interests include behavioral sciences, disruptive technologies, and talent development. He believes that the key to success is getting the right team and flawless execution.
Strategic Advisor Canada
John has been involved in the management of numerous technology companies over many years.
He is Managing Director for Trakcom Wireless Inc, a leading manufacturer of communications products and solutions for railroads and rapid transit systems.
He is also Chief Operating Officer at Eomax Corp., a manufacturer of tactical surveillance and reconnaissance systems used by defence and homeland security organizations around the world.
John is also Chief Financial Officer of Opterus Inc., a provider of SAAS-based store management software to major retail chains and President of Occulus Inc. a start-up sales management software company. John was formerly Chief Financial Officer of Route1 Inc. (TSX: ROI) a provider of secure remote network connection solutions, and Managing Director of CIBC World Markets. John is a professional Engineer and Chartered Financial Analyst.
Management Team
Kundan Shekhawat, President and CEO
Best known for his dynamic leadership, Kundan Shekhawat, CEO of Ascent is responsible for steering the company to where it is today.
Raised in a humble family and disciplined military background, he is a down to earth visionary with deep rooted values.
He has wide experience in financial services & extensive expertise in Product Development Engineering, strategy and P & L management. With a career spanning 18+ years, his vision was the one that carried Ascent through its successive stages of growth.
A passionate entrepreneur, Kundan’s determination built the organization with a focus on constantly enhancing competitiveness, profitability, customer focus, partnership, branding, corporate values and governance.
Heminder Ahluwalia, Chief Operatiing Officer
Heminder Ahluwalia serves the role of Chief Operations Officer in Ascent.
He comes with 27 years of experience in industries like telecom, financial services, manufacturing and IT advisory.
He has worked in organizations like Texas Instruments, Tech Mahindra, 3i Infotech, Gartner and Aditya Birla in the areas of Program Management, Operations and Digital Business.
His most recent assignment was with Aditya Birla as VP Digital Business where he provided thought leadership, big picture overview and worked with CxOs in helping them craft their digital business roadmaps.
Prior to this, he was with Gartner for 12 years where he built its CIO advisory business for India.
Heminder looks into all aspects of operations including Human Resources, Product Development and Sales and Marketing (India Operations).
Through his leadership he is empowered to drive change through transformation and optimization of processes, technology and people, thereby working towards placing Ascent on an exponential path for growth.
Pallaw Mishra, Chief Technology Officer
He led a dynamic career at Defence Research and Development Organisation, India for 20+ years, experience spanning Artificial Intelligence, Quantitative Modelling, Machine Learning, Models and Algorithm Development, Game Theory, Information Security, Geographical Information Systems, Battlefield Simulation, and their applications in Systems Analyses.
He achieved significant milestones in complex projects of national importance relating to Strategic Systems and Decision-Making, Conventional and Cyber Warfare, Crisis Games, Forecasting and Perspective Planning.He was Project director for Information and warfare analytics where he directed application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Strategic Decision Planning related to conventional, cyber and intelligence warfare.
He has number of research publications in national and international journals in the area of Cyber warfare, Information Warfare, Game Theory and Warfare Analytics. He is a member of review board of International Journal of Network Security.
David Kalkut, Vice President Sales North America
David Kalkut is an accomplished enterprise sales leader with over 25 years of selling Business Process Transformation and Digital Transformation platforms to Fortune 2000 companies.David led the International Sales efforts at Autotask – a New York based startup that provided Professional Services Automation Software to banks and insurance companies. He oversaw the exponential growth and acquisition of new customers, while driving top line revenue expansion across North American, EMEA and APAC markets. He was instrumental in opening offices in London, Sydney, Singapore and Toronto and helped integrate strategic innovation and established best practices to a global user community.
David has lead sales divisions for both domestic and overseas based companies that provide low code application development platforms for enterprises to quickly build and evolve apps to meet their customer and employee needs and drive digital transformation on a global scale. In these roles David has lead the Financial Services Teams in an effort to deliver business process management strategies that enables large enterprises to define critical business policies and procedures, and deploy business rules that govern critical business operations. David has experience in global expansion strategies and has resided in the UK, Sydney and Singapore during his career.
Shashi V, Regional Sales Head Middle East and Africa
An ex-Microsoft Program manager, Shashidhar has led strategic product development efforts with products like Microsoft Excel mobile, Microsoft Word mobile, Mobile Media App, Promart Escrow and AutoBCM.
With a Computer Science graduate degree from GMR IT, he dropped out of BITS, Pilani Masters degree to pursue his passion of product development. He possesses a large amount of experience in core software product development.
He drives Ascent in terms of business development, sales, strategies, delivery and support for Middle Eastern and North African region.
Shilpa Pradhan, Head of Marketing North America
Shilpa Pradhan is an experienced marketing strategist with over 17 years of experience in digital marketing and project management. She has worked with a range of Businesses on formulating a content strategy that aligns with their business goals, helping them increase their market presence and making the most out of their digital marketing. She has a passion for connecting with current and future customers by engaging them regularly, building genuine relationships, and ultimately turning a follower into a client.
Before working as a Marketing professional, Shilpa has a decade of successful experience as a Project Manager with India’s foremost technology services company on their high-value projects across various technology domains. She has extensive experience in working with clients across Asia, Europe and North America.
Neeti Shekhawat, Head of HR
Neeti is an experienced Human Resources Professional and having contributed to Multinational organizations and exposure to working in a Start Up, she has been a Strategic Partner to Business and hones a breadth of knowledge and experience in developing and managing a sound, humane and value based HR organization. She originates and leads Human Resources practices and objectives that will provide an employee-oriented; high performance culture that emphasizes empowerment, quality, productivity, and standards; goal attainment, and the recruitment and ongoing development of a superior workforce.
Diversity has been the theme for Neeti’s journey and with a keen understanding of business she enjoy ‘s roles that impact organizations as a whole. She is a strategic thinker who understands that great companies require the intersection of great ideas, talented people and a unifying culture. As Head of HR for Ascent, she collaborates with businesses in understanding the people imperatives critical for business success and delivering the same through a wide spectrum of HR interventions.
Specialties: Talent Acquisition | Leadership Hiring | Strategy and Planning | Stakeholder and Team Management | Strategic Sourcing |Performance Management |HR Business Partnering |Talent Management
Sajid Shaikh, Product Head – BCM
Over 14 years of experience in the business continuity management, customer service, team management and finance division of multinational banks. Diploma in system analysis and designing. Qualified Business Continuity professional practitioners from DRI International and Lead Auditor ISO 22301:2012 & ISO 9001:2015 from BSI Training Institute.
Implemented BCM in one of the largest international financial institution with 57 country membership and the biggest Islamic bank in Abu Dhabi.
Proven expertise in Business Impact Analysis, BC Risk Assessment, BC Planning & Strategy, Business Continuity Policies and Procedures, Disaster Recovery, Project Management, Team Management, Contingency Planning, Vendor Management, Stakeholder Relationship, Workflow Automation, Internal/ External BCMS Audit and Certification.
Nitisha Ghosh, BCM Consultant North America
A seasoned IT Risk Professional, Nitisha has over 15 years of strong management consulting experience and expertise in IT risk assessment & remediation planning, information systems and compliance auditing, IT security architecture review, and business continuity management.
A prior Big-4 Advisory Manager, Nitisha has worked with Fortune 500 companies and is skilled in leading and delivering successful client engagements across different technologies.
She has traveled extensively across North America & Asia Pacific providing auditing and advisory services across diverse industry segments such as Banking, Finance, Energy, IT and IT Enabled services.
Nitisha holds a Masters in Information Technology from Symbiosis International University. She is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) by ISACA and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) by IAPP.
An effective leader with proven abilities in managing diverse teams, Nitisha believes in people collaboration and technology innovation.
Awards & Accolades
Technoviti Awards 2017
Best Financial Innovative Reconciliation Software Specialists
Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards 2017
Mr. Kundan Shekhawat, Best Entreprenuer – Financial Services
Express It Awards 2016
World’s Greatest Brands and Leaders 2018-2019
World’s Best Brand – Software Technology
Indian ISV Awards 2016
Most Innovative Solution Of The Year
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