Anand Sudarshan is Founder & Director, Sylvant Advisors Private Limited, accompany that that provides a range of advisory & consulting services in the education sector to Indian & global institutions, large enterprises, and investors; in addition, Sylvant also incubates, invests in, and advises start-up & early stage companies. He is currently an independent non-executive director of NIIT Limited, the pioneer in education & training. In addition, he serves on a number of boards, as well as government committees on policy advisory in education.
He served as Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of Manipal Global Education (MaGE), for 6 years. A pioneering global education entity headquartered out of Bangalore, MaGE is the largest higher education & related services entity out of India. Anand was instrumental in leading the team that built MaGE through expanding its global footprint to 6 campuses, in addition to propelling it as the definitive leader in technology-driven higher education out of India. Notable among the several milestones & achievements MaGE had during Anand’s tenure, are new campuses in Malaysia, Dubai, Antigua and India; an award-winning technology learning platform, EduNxt; a pioneering banking academy, probably the largest of its kind in the world; and expansion of MaGE’s multi-country footprint through organic & inorganic strategies. Post moving out of a full-time position, Anand served as an independent non-executive director of MaGE from July 2012 till September 2013.
Anand Sudarshan has been a recognised leader in the education sector for the past 9 years. He is an active member of FICCI’s (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) national committees on Higher Education & School Education, is the Chair of its national committee on innovation & start-up’s, and is the Co-Chair of FICCI’s Karnataka State Council. He has in the past been a member of CII’s (Confederation of Indian Industry) national committee on Education. He is a founding member of EDGE (an education sector forum and think-tank) and the Vice-Chairman of EDGE’s Vision Group. He is also a trustee of Head Held High Foundation, which is doing seminal work in transforming rural poverty through empowering youth with low or no education through a dynamic combination of focus on training such youth, and creation of jobs through accelerating the rural economy.
Prior to his stint at MaGE, Anand was an entrepreneur & a senior executive at companies in the Information Technology industry, co-founding the Microland Group, and later driving Adea Solutions International.
Anand holds a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, and a PGDM (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India.
