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  • Ishan Gupta

    I am a global executive who loves to scale up companies

  • Scale It Up

    My weekly newsletter "Scale It Up" is all about scaling up companies through leadership, team building and goal alignment.

    Early hires = important hires

    Skip-level meetings can be gold for a leader!

    Become conscious about unconscious biases

    Negotiation: a must have skill!

    You Can’t Get It All, Follow Your North Star

    Relationship With Your Manager: The Most Valuable Investment at Work

  • Professional Journey

    My passion is to scale up fast growing companies by solving critical problems, finding growth opportunities and go to market plans, building strong teams and inspiring future leaders.

     

    Currently, as the Senior Vice President (Operations) at Tala, I am leading key parts of global operations including business operations, customer operations and compliance. Alongside that, responsible critical internal processes such as annual planning and quarterly goal setting in the company. I work closely with the entire C suite and leadership team of Tala with a goal to make us operationally more effective, so that we can achieve our mission of serving the underbanked population around the world.

     

    In my last role, as the Global Head of Operations at Udacity, I was responsible for driving successful outcomes for customers worldwide (consumer, enterprise and government). Previously, I built Udacity’s India business from the ground up.

     

    Before joining Udacity, I was the Vice President at Paytm, one of Asia's largest fin-tech companies. I was also the Founder & CEO of EduKart.com, which became India's largest ed-tech marketplace in only five years before it was acqui-hired by Paytm. I was also the first growth evangelist for Facebook in India.

     

    While still an undergraduate student, I founded my first company that delivered offline technology trainings across India. I captured the learnings from this journey in a book titled "Make the Move - Demystifying Entrepreneurship", which sold few thousand copies.

     

    I am an occasional investor and I love to back founders who are trying to solve meaningful problems in areas such as climate, consumer internet, education, future of work.

  • Education

    Bachelor's in Engineering

    (University of Delhi)

    MBA

    (Stanford University)

  • Personal Life

    I was born in India and spent most of my life there. I spent two years in the US for grad school in 2007, and then moved to the US in 2019. I was fortunate to travel around the world with my parents and gain a lot of exposure

     

    I have been married to Divya, an incredibly amazing girl, whom I met online while I was an undergrad student in late 1990s. We dated for a decade and have been married for the next one. She is my best friend and most trusted counsel.

    We have a three year old toddler, Ayaan, who keeps us on our feet and teaches us new things everyday.

     

    My wife is a superb baker and shares my passion for travel. So seeing wonderful places & eating yummy cakes are two important elements of life outside work.

     

    We are currently based in SF Bay Area.

    Celebrating our son's third birthday
  • Conferences & Press

    Speaking Engagements

    ACG San Francisco (2021)

    How Digital Trends are Shaping the Future of Education

    Network Capital (2021)

    Cracking Stanford GSB and Shaping EdTech

    Harvard

    India Conference (2020)

    Role of Technology in Providing Quality Education

    ASU+GSV Summit (2020)

    The Road to India: the Outside-In Perspective

  • Podcasts and Press

    Startup Mindset

    2020

    How to pick a board member and build a team

    #ThinkIndia

    2020

    Investing in Life Long Learning with Ishan Gupta 

    Economic Times

    2019

    8 Years, 2 Companies. What Makes Me Believe in Edtech

    Fortune India

    2018

    Edu-tech Firm Udacity Bets Big on India

    TechHR

    2017

    Jobs of Tomorrow - What will Jobs Look Like in The Next 5 years 

    Economic Times

    2016

    Can Ishan Gupta's EduKart be the answer to India's education woes?

    TEDxNSIT

    2016

    E for Entrepreneurship - All About Entrepreneurial Culture and Values

    Economic Times

    2015

    Hello Entrepreneur: Find your Mentor!

  • How Can I Help?

    If you are a founder thinking about go-to-market, growth, building your team, international expansion, scaling operations or raising your next round, then I could help you in your journey.

    Just drop a message using the form below and we can setup some time to chat.

     
  • Get Connected

    Email me at ishang [at] gmail, connect on LinkedIn or subscribe to Scale-It-Up
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