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Management Team

Meet the people at GSG

“It is our responsibility to make every ordinary child into an extraordinary global citizen.”

Mr. Atul Temurnikar
Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Global Schools Group

Executive Management

Rajeev Katyal

CEO

Mr Katyal has rich experience in the fields of education, skill development and the

industry.

He has over 35 years of experience in marquee organisations like Microsoft, NIIT and now Global Schools Group (GSG), a chain of 64 schools in 11 countries. An MBA from IIM Kolkata, he is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Global Schools Foundation, of which GSG is an initiative. He oversees the operations of educations services in their Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, India, UAE and Thailand campuses. At Microsoft as Director of Education, he was responsible for the company’s relationship in the education space with Central and State Governments. As Senior Vice President at NIIT, he led major organisation units like E-learning, International Education. He was the marketing head globally of NIIT Education as well as software businesses in the USA, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Far East and India. Mr Katyal is also an avid historian and has written and published a book on 700 years of Delhi’s history called: “Battles for Delhi – Dilli Kareeb Ast” in 2016.

Rahul Deshpande

Chief Operating Officer

Mr Deshpande is the Chief Operating Officer and a key part of the

central leadership team. He is instrumental in ensuring smooth operations of all 64 GSF campuses in 11 countries.

He has over 22 years of experience in a variety of sectors such as Consumer Products Marketing, Banking, Investment Management and Education across North America and Asia. He was most recently the CEO for K12 schools at Lighthouse Learning Group, a network of 50 K12 schools across India. As part of this role, Rahul led a 3x growth in student enrolment by setting up greenfield campuses and acquiring school brands. He was also responsible for launching new curricula and a custom built Learning Management System that allowed Lighthouse Learning to provide a standardised and high quality academic experience to its 45,000 students.

Rahul is a Mechanical Engineer from Pune University, has a post graduate diploma from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Prafulla Rout

Deputy Chief Finance Officer

Mr Rout joined GSG in 2011 to lead the financial operations of GIIS campuses

worldwide.

He has over 25 years of experience in statutory and management accounting, process automation and ERP implementation, financial planning, budgeting and reporting, acquisition, integration of legal entities, statutory compliance, business controls and financial risk management, liaison with financial institutions, investor relations, financial strategy and decision support. Mr Rout is a Cost & Management Accountant (CMA) and worked in the finance function of IT companies for 15 years before joining GSG.

Sanjeev Dubey

Chief Technology Officer

Mr Dubey oversees and manages all aspects of information technology for the

Group worldwide.

He has been instrumental in making GIIS a tech-first campus replete with an in-house ERP and online learning and grading systems. 

Rajeev Koul

Deputy Chief Operating Officer (Dy COO) – ASEAN and North Asia

Mr Koul is an accomplished professional with 27 years of domestic and

international experience in education management, skill development, government and institutional business.

He has helped develop and manage more than 900 educational learning setups across 12 countries. In the past, he worked for organisations like Hero Group, Everonn Education, Apollo Tyres Group and Apeejay Education Society. Mr Koul has served as a member of NABET (Quality Council of India), BRICS Business Council for Skills Development Sector Working Group, and others.

Sarita Alurkar

Sr Director, Marketing

Ms Alurkar has 25+ years of experience in brand strategy and digital marketing for

top global FMCG and education brands in multiple geographies across Asia and the Middle East

Abhilasha Deshmukh

Group Human Resources Director

Ms Deshmukh has more than 20 years of experience in human resources in various industries such as technology, professional services and education.

 

She has an intense curiosity for people and a passion for making a difference in other people’s lives. Ms Deshmukh is a certified leadership coach and looks forward to facilitating her coaching skills in enhancing employee potential within the organisation.

Rathin Khandhadia

Director, Education Excellence

Mr Khandhadia is a quality expert and has experience across diverse industries like

steel, telecom, energy and education.

At GSG, he has been instrumental in setting up quality-focussed processes for operational excellence, organisational performance monitoring and policies. Under his direction, GSG has received many business and educational excellence awards and certifications. He has been instrumental in the Kaizen club and sustainability movement within GSG schools.

Arjun Temurnikar

Director, Learning Technologies

Mr Arjun Temurnikar is Associate Director of Technology and looks after bringing in

technological innovations to improve teaching and learning for all stakeholders. Arjun’s interest areas are in artificial intelligence and data analytics as well as cloud applications development. 

Ayush Kalani

Associate Director, Student Acquisition

Mr Kalani brings a wealth of experience in Sales Management, Business

Development & Digital Marketing Technologies.

He has more than 14 years of business experience working in the Education space across several leadership roles within the e-learning, higher education and K12 sectors and he holds an MBA, specializing in Marketing from IIT- Roorkee in India.

Rupali Karekar

Divisional Manager, Communications

Ms Karekar has more than 15 years of experience in the field of communications

and content strategising.  

She has experience in print, audio-visual and digital media, having worked as a journalist with Times of India, DNA and Singapore Press Holdings covering the political and business beat. At Global Schools Group, she handles communications with internal stakeholders and public relations with external audiences. She oversees the website creation and upgrade process and contributes to the email automation projects for the Group. She has been actively involved in introducing new media within the institution for the company’s overall benefit. Ms Karekar is a triple graduate in Childhood Studies, Disability Studies, with a diploma in counselling psychology and additional skills in photography.

Growth projects, Mergers and Acquisitions

Prasoon Dayal

Chief Investment Officer

Mr Dayal has over 25 years of deep investment experience across multiple

business and financial cycles in a wide variety of roles. His experience includes private equity, private and special situations debt and mezzanine financing at some of the most respected institutions in the finance industry.

He worked extensively with various distribution/sales channels within Fixed Income, including Asia credit sales, Asia private lending, as well as similar teams in London, USA, and the Middle East. He managed assets in all positions, including internal reporting, as well as ongoing representation of portfolio interest with borrower companies.He has extensive network and investment experience in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand across various asset classes.

Kaustubh Bodhankar

Sr Deputy Chief Executive Officer,
Deputy Chief Investment Officer - GSG

Mr Bodhankar brings more than twenty years of management and business

development experience to the Foundation.

He has spearheaded the functioning of the Group’s entities to bring quality and excellence standards to business practises. Before joining GSG, he served as a Business Head, Indonesia Operations for Thermax Ltd, in the manufacturing and services sector. Mr Bodhankar holds a degree in mechanical engineering and a magna-cum-laude Masters in Business Management from the Asian Institute of Management.

Rachel C. Provest

Director, Growth and Investments - GSG

Ms Rachel has operated under various roles in South East Asia since 2004.

Rachel was CEO of Lorna Whiston Schools and Investment Director for Rising Tide, which had a chain of K12 schools across Europe and Asia. Rachel served as CFO and then Managing Director for BLG Capital Advisors Asia, advising on global investments for family offices.  She has a Joint MA with Honours in Political Science and French from the University of Edinburgh and received her MBA from the University of Chicago. Rachel is also an internationally published author (‘Whatever You Want’ – Harper Collins, 2003 & ‘Max Your Money’ – Welbeck, 2022) and a qualified sommelier.

Harjesh Singh Kaushal

Director, Growth and Investments - GSG UK

Harjesh is the Director of Business Development and Finance. He is a senior

member of GSG’s “growth” team and is responsible for global M&A, partnerships, liaising with various government agencies and creating new growth opportunities.

He is also the MENA region’s finance controller and leads the regional F&A team. Harjesh did his MBA (Finance) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He is a qualified management accountant from CIMA (UK) and a certified chartered accountant from ACCA (UK). Currently, he is also a CFA Level 2 candidate. Before joining GSG in 2011, Harjesh had worked as corporate strategist in many MNCs. He has worked on several cross-border M&A transactions (USA, Europe and Asia), executed multiple large scale cross-functional projects, raised funds and represented his organisations at various forums.

Country Directors

Mr Manoj Nair

Country Director - Malaysia

Mr Nair is the founding member of the GIIS Malaysia team.

He oversees the entire operations of GIIS in Kuala Lumpur and is presently the Country Director of Global Indian Education Sdn Bhd and GIIS campuses in Malaysia. A chartered accountant (ACCA UK) by profession, he has worked for a prestigious audit firm, the insurance and shipping industries before taking the exciting journey into the education industry. He was also a lecturer of business studies at various colleges.

Mr Amol Vaidya

Dy COO, MENA
Country Director - UAE, KSA

Mr Vaidya takes care of the operational and functional responsibilities of all

GSG projects in the MENA region.

Mr Vaidya has more than 26 years of senior management experience with a proven entrepreneurial record in the health care and IT sectors. His forte as a business leader lies in building teams and the implementation of start-up greenfield projects. He has been an active Heartfulness Practitioner for 36 years and a trainer for the last 16 years.

Mr Ashish Tibdewal

Country Director - India

Mr Tibdewal oversees GSG's India portfolio comprising 26 schools

educating over 25,000 students in multiple curricula.

Mr Tibdewal comes with over 26 years of experience in the industry, of which 10 years were in the K12 schools sector. He is a Chartered Accountant from ICAI (1997) with experience in managing Finance and Business affairs. He completed the INSEAD (Singapore) Leadership Programme for Senior Executives.

Sumit Mishra

Mr Sumit Mishra

Country Director - Japan, South Korea

Mr Mishra is a veteran of the EdTech/education management space.

From 2010 he has been involved in the K-12 sector at a time when new age school brands in India were in their inception. He was instrumental in developing franchising and partnership models for school chains as an asset-light growth multiplier. This helped school chains in scaling up projects not only in cities but also in semi-urban India. Mr Mishra has been associated with brands like Educomp, Millennium and Zee.

Mr Prashant Bafna

Country Director - Singapore

Mr Bafna has over 20 years of experience in the field of education, manufacturing

and other sectors.

He has contributed to the sales, marketing, operations and project management in different parts of the world including India, Japan and Singapore. Currently, he oversees operations in GIIS and OWIS in Singapore.