Our Team - TalentEase India

Why TalentEase

The school helps develop talent in the child, to some extent. But it is mostly confined to academics. This does not prepare the child for real life. That is where we come in. We supplement school-inputs to give the child a strong personality. Skills and values, that make the big difference, are added to the child. She is given the success toolkit for life. As someone put it, at first we form our habits, then our habits form us. At TalentEase we spend time with children and young adults building habits that will form them into better people.

We work with schools and colleges, children, parents, alumni and educationists to further these goals.

One of the big challenges with our education system is the lack of focus on “employability skills” and “entrepreneurial skills”. Our focus is on trying to plug this gap. For children and young adults keen on an employment career path, we help them become not just employees, but value-based innovative leaders. For those keen on the entrepreneurship path, we help them become passionate and creative entrepreneurs.

Other than skills we also believe that education should include a focus on ‘values’. The one person who drives past a red light today did not imbibe the value of responsibility and concern for others, as a child. It is also true of the ‘schooled’ person, who jumps a queue, litters the surrounding, pays a bribe, and disrespects women. Somehow the ‘value’ input went missing.

Schools & Colleges Touched

50 +

Teachers, Parents & Educators

9000 +

Impact Sessions Conducted

900000 +

Our People

Our Founding Team

Leo Fernandez

CEO & CO-FOUNDER

Thought leader in education and consultant and coach to school leadership, teachers and parents
18 years of Outsourcing Leadership experience in Asia Pacific consulting with and servicing Global and Regional clients.
Previously as Partner/Managing Director with Accenture, Singapore;
COO with Hewitt Outsourcing APAC, President India Life Hewitt.
Business Head experience with P & L responsibility. Has overseen teams in Sales, Operations, Client and Account Management, Technology, Fin and HR.
Experience on transformation programs with Global clients from Asia and for Asia.
Experience working with multi-national clients across a wide industry and geographic spectrum.
Speaker at education and industry conferences and writes regularly for Business Line On Campus and The Hindu in School.

Pradeep Anthony

COO & CO-FOUNDER

Brings HR expertise to education, consultant and coach to school leadership, teachers and parents
Over 18 years delivering excellence in the Talent function, the last 11 based in the US.
Service-provider and end-customer perspectives gained from working with organizations like Ma Foi, Birlasoft and L&T Infotech
Outstanding professional portfolio including Deputy Head of Human Resources at L&T Infotech – managing HR, Immigration, and Staffing
Proven track record of excellence in hiring over 2000 people across 4 continents
Experience with Talent Acquisition, Development and Retention.

Our Leadership Team

With a Bachelor's in Business Management and a Diploma in International Education, Yentl has close to 12 years of experience in the Teaching, Training and Education field. Children never cease to amaze her with their thought, innocence and wit. She has taught all subjects over the primary grades and also facilitated skill and value building for students from primary classes to graduates at TalentEase.

Yentl DSilva

Peter has a degree in Foreign Trade and has experience working in the export and domestic textile industry for more than 25 years. He has handled various business activities including production planning and control, sourcing, marketing and business development at various companies such as Gokaldas Exports and Tata International. With an interest in social business, he started work at TalentEase in 2014 and looks after client engagement, business development and the LightLives outreach initiative. He is married to Mamta and has two children Pritam and Punita. He plays the saxophone.

Peter Ghooi

Raghavendra is an engineer-marketer by training, an entrepreneur by accident and a problem solver by nature. Over his 14+ years of the entrepreneurial journey, he has donned multiple hats in tech, marketing and product development in the domains of mapping and e-commerce, and served clients in education, healthcare and government. Raghavendra believes in the power of education in transforming society and how it can be empowered through technology.

Raghavendra K S

Dipna Jacob is the Content Lead at TalentEase. She strongly believes that skills and values learnt early stays through a lifetime. A polyglot, voracious reader and avid traveller, she is passionate about sharing her knowledge to benefit the future generation. She has over two years of experience in corporate communication and a decade as a media person in the Sultanate of Oman, her expertise are in the fields of business communications, copywriting, creative visualisation, PR and advertising, and content development. She has an MA, M.Phil in English Literature. She has a blog dipz.weebly.com

Dipna Jacob

Our Advisory Team

Harish Devarajan

Harish Devarajan was last the Vice President- HR at Hindustan Unilever Ltd. He has over 27 years of experience in the corporate & consulting sectors.

Companies he has worked for include TVS Sundram Fasteners Ltd. and Hindustan Lever Ltd. He is now an independent Leadership Consultant and Executive Coach. He is accredited by the International Coach Federation, USA. He continues to be a sought after speaker and has written and published articles on HR topics in professional journals / newspapers.

Arun Pereira

Arun Pereira is Emeritus Faculty, Chaifetz School of Business, Saint Louis University, USA. His previous positions include MIT-Sloan International Faculty Fellow and Professor of Practice at MIT-Sloan’s Asia School of Business (2018-19), Executive Director of the Center for Learning and Management Practice and Clinical Faculty at the Indian School of Business (2008-2018), External Faculty at McKinsey & Company (2012-2015), Associate Professor at Saint Louis University and the Boeing Institute of International Business (1991-2008). He is also AACSB’s Global Facilitator for Assurance of Learning in Asia (2012-present), and faculty, International Teachers Programme (London Business School, 2019- 2020; IAE-Aix Marseille 2017-2018, and CEIBS Shanghai and Beijing 2015- 2016).

Siddharth Sood

Siddharth Sood heads Operations and brings precision and process orientation to Wildcraft. Wildcraft today is India’s No:1 Outdoor brand having established a category that is unique in India. Passionate about Finance, IT and Operations Sid was a CFO at GE and Head, Delivery at Hewitt Associates with stints across the world.

Sid brings a creative and analytical brain to building and scaling operations. He has worked in challenging roles in Europe and the Asia Pacific region. He works with TalentEase on brand-building, finance and scaling operations.

David Evans

David Evans is a former Managing Director with Accenture in London. He specializes in HR, workforce transformation & outsourcing. He has extensive experience of working on global projects ranging from China through to the US. David has a LL.B Hons (Bachelor of Law).

He is an Accredited Mediator with the Centre for Dispute Resolution in London and undertakes public service as a Magistrate in England & Wales. His strengths are focusing on the future – strategy formulation and idea creation, and also on what makes us tick as individuals. He has now started his own Transformation Consulting practice.

Pritam Lena Benjamin

Pritam Lena Benjamin, a gold medallist from Allahabad University, has an M.A. in English and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from Calcutta.

Over a 38 year career in education, she has served as Vice Principal of Bangalore International School, founding Principal of National Academy for learning(NAFL), Indus International School, Bangalore and Inventure Academy, Bangalore. Earlier she taught at Sishya in Chennai, La Martiniere for Girls and in Loreto College in Kolkata and Women’s College, Ranchi.

Ignatius Fernandez

Ignatius Fernandez has been a Senior Executive across diverse industries for over 30 years. He has also been Professor of Management Studies and a Corporate Trainer for over 13 years.

He is the author of several books on relationship-building and a regular contributor of expert insight on relationship-building to the media. He also writes a Parenting blog at thechildisfatheroftheman.blogspot.in. His latest book on parenting is called The Child is Father of the man.

Industry Executive Council

The Industry Executive Council has been created for the specific purpose of ensuring that our content and methods are aligned with what the world@work wants and needs. It is validation from Industry that our content will help build the future-ready skills and values they need.

The Council comprises senior executives from diverse industries, geographies and with varied expertise – they all share a common passion – they believe that equipping young people with the right inputs today will help these young people be successful and effective adults tomorrow. They also believe that’s what will create a better world !

Ed Valenzuela

Mr. Valenzuela spent 16 years in various consulting, IT and outsourcing positions. He lived and worked on five continents and was proficient in Finance and Accounting, Human Resource processes, Procurement and IT services. During his career he implemented a number of ERP systems, managed various back-office processes for clients and ran two of the largest outsourcing deals in the industry.

Prior to his consulting career, Mr. Valenzuela had started an outsourcing company (Source Squared, Inc.) after a 24 career in Banking. He attended the University of Notre Dame and the University of Missouri for his undergraduate degree in Finance/Accounting and the University of Dallas for his MBA. He is married with three children and three grandchildren, and enjoys reading, mineral collecting and hiking in the mountains.

Ivan Fernandez

Industry Director, Frost & Sullivan, Australia and New Zealand

Based in Sydney, Australia, Ivan has over a decade of experience delivering industry research and consulting to clients in the energy, automation, process control, environment, building technologies, construction, facilities management, electronics, chemicals and food & beverage sectors. Through global and regional market quantification, competitive analysis, product and technology review, market entry strategy development, go-to-market planning and B2B customer research, he has helped manufacturers, service providers, universities, government departments and investors take informed decisions impacting their growth. Author of custom consulting reports and multi-client reports on frost.com, Ivan is also a thought-leader with regular contributions to industry publications and as speaker at leading industry events.

Anand Kabra

Head HR Delivery ( Business Process Services) Cognizant

Anand leads the HR delivery for Business Process Service at Cognizant.. In this role he manages the entire gamut of HR delivery for the BPO practice across India & Philippines. Anand’s career includes stints with Arvind Mills and Eicher Goodearth and a longer than 10 year innings with various GE businesses and Genpact. He is a certified Black belt and a Master black belt from GE. He has worked across IT & Software Operations, Account Management, Compliance and finally HR in GE/Genpact across Geographies like India, US, UK, China & South Africa. He has 18 years of experience post his Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunication from Devi Ahilya University, Indore and MBA in Operations Management from NITIE, Mumbai.

Our Partners

Yahweh Solutions

YAHWEH Software Solutions is a software company based in Bangalore, India. It provides a portfolio of end-to-end business IT solutions to clients, including Technical Consulting, Design, Development, Software Engineering, Maintenance, Systems Integration, Product Evaluation, Testing and Implementation and Infrastructure Management Services.

The Diversity & Innovation Company

The Diversity & Innovation Company sends company leaders, Intern volunteers and school groups on real life experiences with Indian schools and businesses, to help leaders look beyond the norm, unlock their imagination, and change the way they think forever – in a life changing way.

The Hidden Castle

The Hidden Castle, as its name suggests, is an imposing castle-themed resort a one-hour’s smooth drive away from Hyderabad. Sprawling majestically over 30 acres of untamed terrain, it is just what adventure and nature lovers dream of. The Hidden Castle in association with TalentEase provides Leadership & Team-building programs for School/College students as well as Working Professionals and Corporate Employees.