Mr. Ashank Desai

Founder, Vice Chairman & Managing Director
Mastek Ltd

Ashank Desai is the Founder, Vice Chairman & Managing Director of Mastek Ltd. a global technology services company offering digital services and software for public and private enterprises in the UK, US, Middle East, Asia-Pacific and India. Mastek is around $ 200+ – million publicly-held IT player with 3500+ employees with global operations providing solutions to Government, Health care, Retail, & BFSI. He also guides Mastek Foundation, whose mission is to enable “Informed Giving and Responsible Receiving

Mr. Desai is widely recognized as an IT industry veteran and is one of the founder members & Past Chairman of NASSCOM. He was a former President of Asian Oceanian Computing Industry Organisation (ASOCIO), an Association of 20 countries in this region.

Mr. Desai was a member of Digital Committee of Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC) for more than 5 years and was a chairman of the committee for 2 years. He has been involved in CII as Committee Member and Chairman of various sub-committees at the Regional as well as National Level. His other public contributions include serving as Member of the Maharashtra State Security Council. He is also the Vice Chairman, Governing Board of Bombay First, an NGO working on the mission to make Mumbai a world class city. He was earlier Member, International Team on Economic Reforms for the President of Zambia.

Mr. Desai is actively involved in the field of education, and is a Member of Governing Board of IIM Ahmedabad, a Member of Governing Board & Society of Goa Institute of Management (GIM) for the last 11 year, now President of GIM Society. He is Member of Governing Board of IIIT, Bhubaneshwar & Goa Engineering College, in addition to being Vice Chairman of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for Goa Government. He also serves on the Advisory Boards of SJM School of Management, and as Vice-Chairman, Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) at his alma mater IIT Bombay

He is very actively involved in Social Sector. Founded and funded an NGO - Avanti Foundation which has trained for the last 9 years 28,000 school girls, from low income groups, to become leaders. Founder member & Co-Chairman at PanIIT Alumni Reach for India (PARFI). A 10-year-old Not-for-Profit organization providing Vocational Training PARFI trained 25,000 high-school dropouts in rural areas. Almost everyone got job. Founding Board of Advisors for an Award-winning NGO-Avanti Fellows for 9 years. Trained over 60,000 disadvantaged students for admission in engineering colleges and IITs.

Recently he has been felicitated by the Prime Minster Shri Narendra Modi for his contribution to NASSCOM & IT Industry for the last 25 years. He has been conferred with the “Distinguished Alumnus” Award from IIT Bombay and “Fellow of the Society” by Computer Society of India (CSI) in recognition of his services to the Indian IT Industry as an entrepreneur and for his contribution to the growth of education. He has also been presented with the Honourable Contributors Award by ASOCIO – the only Indian to receive this recognition twice. He was conferred with the Outstanding Entrepreneur Award at the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards (APEA) 2010 India. Mr. Desai is a charter member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).”