Executive Leadership Team

Ashok Santhanam, President & Chief Executive Officer
Ashok has over 25 years of experience leading technology product and service businesses. Prior to joining Bristlecone, he was Senior Vice President, Worldwide Field Operations at Epiphany (Nasdaq: EPNY), a leader in the analytics-driven CRM software industry.
 
Earlier, Ashok was Founder, CEO and Chairman of Inventa Technologies, a successful and fast-growing provider of fixed price/fixed time B2B e-commerce services to large corporate clients. Ashok also founded two other services companies, including Ventura Data Systems, an early pioneer in offshore product development services and Challenger Systems, a successful provider of private-label implementation services to software companies, and was the Managing Director of Santhanam Consulting, providing strategy consulting services to clients in the enterprise IT, technology services and technology-enabled services sectors. He began his career with Gould Inc., a Fortune 500 technology company, where he rose to head operations for one of its major divisions.
 
Ashok received an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and a B.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.
 
He serves as a director on the board of Lohika (www.lohika.com), a company that provides dual-shore software product development services for technology companies.

Irfan Khan, Senior Vice President and General Manager - Global Field Operations

Irfan is responsible for leveraging the full suite of Bristlecone’s solutions and services for the benefit of all customers across North America and the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) geographies.
 
Irfan joined Bristlecone in January 2002 as Director of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and since then has held several key responsibilities, including setting up the first offshore operation and successfully creating a new line of integration services with Global ISV’s. Prior to Bristlecone, Irfan was the Senior Director, Sales and Operations, for Sutherland Global Services, a leading multi-national BPO/Development Service provider with over 17,000 employees focused on the financial and telecom markets. Irfan has also worked for Microsoft and Hughes Network Systems.
 
Irfan has nearly 20 years of distributed consulting experience and serves on the Advisory Board of several enterprise software and service organizations. Having started and grown outsourced software divisions for companies in the US, Europe and India, he is a frequent advisor to companies on offshore outsourcing as a strategic tool for Senior Management.
 
He earned an MBA from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, India with specialization in International Business and holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering.

Jessie Chimni, Vice President and Chief Solutions Officer
Jessie has over 17 years of professional experience in the areas of supply chain management and business intelligence processes and solutions, particularly in the electronics, semiconductor and CPG industries. Prior to joining Bristlecone in 2000, Jessie held various management positions at SeeCommerce, a supply chain visibility software company, KPMG and Nestle.
 
At Bristlecone, Jessie is responsible for driving the company’s solution portfolio roadmap and leveraging its world-class intellectual property and subject matter expertise for the benefit of Bristlecone’s customers.
Jessie received a Bachelor’s degree in Economic (Honors) from Punjab University, and a Master’s degree in Management Studies from Carleton University in Canada.

Naresh Hingorani, Vice President, Global Strategic Market Enablement
Naresh Hingorani is the Global Vice President-Strategic Market Enablement, at Bristlecone. In this capacity, he is responsible for all GoToMarket Strategy, Corporate and Field Marketing and Strategic Alliance Development. Naresh has over 16 years of entrepreneurial experience building practices and businesses for both product and service companies in Supply Chain Management. Prior to being named to his current position, he launched and built Bristlecone's Integrated Sourcing and Procurement practice and served as the Global Practice Leader.
 

Before joining Bristlecone, Naresh was responsible for providing leadership and strategy to build and grow the Transport & Logistics Industry Vertical for IBM Global Business Services. He also pioneered solutions under the umbrella of Transportation Resource Planning, which became part of IBM's Supply Chain Management Practice Portfolio. Earlier, he had numerous successes in his role at Americas Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Maersk Data - where he provided product management and strategy for products focusing on the international transportation management needs of retailers and manufacturers - and at Sea-Land Service Inc., then a subsidiary of CSX Corporation, where he pioneered Yield Management concepts. He also was a key member in the launch of NeoModal in 2000, a business which was successfully acquired by Descartes Systems Group.

Naresh holds a Masters Degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Virginia Tech. and an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from India. He has received numerous awards including the Dwight David Eisenhower Fellowship from the US Government. Naresh has published thought leadership articles in several leading industry publications and often speaks in different forums in both academia and industry.

Ritu Mehrotra, Vice President, Global Talent Management
Ritu has over 11 years of experience in various leadership positions across industries which include Retail, Healthcare and most recently IT. She joined Bristlecone in 2010, and has since then been actively contributing to the organization’s growth & helping transform human capital. In her role as the Head of Global HR and Talent Management, Ritu guides strategic programs around education, training, and leadership development.Ritu has executed and lead corporate development initiatives and strategies.

Before taking on her current role, she was the Director - HR & Talent Management for India, Asia-Pacific & EMEA and Director - Global Recruitments. Prior to joining Bristlecone, Ritu spent several years in Canada in sourcing, supply chain planning & client management roles and has rich experience in starting business units from scratch.

Ritu holds a Masters in International Business from IIFT (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade).

Kulashekar Raghavan, Vice President, Finance & Administration
Kulashekhar joined Bristlecone in 2004, and was responsible for finance for our North America operations until he was promoted to his current role in 2008. Prior to Bristlecone, he has held a variety of roles in finance and accounting at Mahindra & Mahindra since 1986.
 
Kulashekhar has over 20 years of experience in the field of Finance/Account/Taxation, and is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Mumbai.

Satish Moorjani, Vice President & General Manager, Asia Pacific  
Satish has over 30 years of rich experience in a variety of industries including Automotive, Consumer Packaged Goods, Industrial, and International Trading and Projects. Most recently, Satish was Vice President, Supply Chain at Mahindra and Mahindra’s Farm Equipment Sector, where he spearheaded their SCM journey, including initiatives such as change management, organizational re-structuring, business process re-engineering and alignment of performance metrics across the supply chain.
 
Satish's educational credentials include a Bachelor of Technology degree from IIT Delhi, and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He has also completed a course in Global Leadership at Carnegie Mellon University.

Prashant Karkhanis, Vice President & General Manager, Operations
Prashant has over 20 years of experience in manufacturing, manufacturing systems implementation and business consulting, and has played key leadership roles at Bristlecone since its inception. He has overseen many successful project implementations as Projects Director, managed Bristlecone’s consulting activities in the areas of supply chain strategy and implementation and has served as Vice President, Operations for Bristlecone in the Asia/Pacific region.
 
Prashant brings a unique mix of years of real-world manufacturing experience and systems design and implementation expertise to Bristlecone, and has been instrumental in developing a similar experience mix among Bristlecone’s formidable consulting team. He is responsible for India Operations for all Practice Areas at Bristlecone

Prashant holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from VJTI in Mumbai, India.