With waves of imminent change visible on the academic horizon, most education organizations continue to deliver education that aims to prepare our youth for many jobs and opportunities that define our past. Professions such as accounting, engineering, law, medicine, etc. will continue to be popular but each profession requires increasing amounts of specialization. However, the most valuable professions will be those that create jobs, define products, innovate new business models and build new dreams. Those professions require that our education institutions shed their traditional ways and get ready for the imminent change. Building a flood barrier against the waves of change is not an option as the waves will be persistent and all-engulfing, slowly yet surely.Kaizen PE is India’s first and only education-focused private equity fund. The fund has invested in six market leading companies in India and will invest in another three or four companies. The fund management team understands the sector in depth and invests in companies that are working well with the waves of change in the education space. The fund’s investors include IFC, SIFEM, Obviam, Bertelsmann and HDFC. The fund management team is led by Sandeep Aneja, who worked as a venture capitalist in the San Francisco bay area and founded Kaizen to drive innovative investments in education. The fund’s portfolio companies have established themselves as a leaders in their respective domains and have collective witnessed a collective revenue growth of 64% since Kaizen’s investment. Kaizen is considered a thought leader in the impact-ful education space and the members of the team are called routinely to participate in local and global education forums and events. In addition, the team researches and writes about the sector and develops themes that drive its investment strategy.
Date and time: 27th March 2014, 2 – 4pm
Venue: Baring Private Equity Asia Pte Ltd
2 Battery Road, #23-01 Maybank Tower, Singapore 049907
(Note: Passport or ID necessary to get into MayBank Tower because of banking regulations)
2.00pm Registration and networking snack
2.15pm Presentation by Sandeep, followed by round table discussion
4.00pm End of Roundtable
Members of the management team visiting Singapore on March 27, 2014 are: Sandeep Aneja and Monica Mehta. Their bios are below:
Sandeep is the Founder and the Managing Director. He leads overall fund strategy, investment analysis, fund raising and relationship management with many of the Fund’s clients and investors. He has 17 years of professional experience, which spans from consulting, operations leadership and investment management. Sandeep is regarded a thought leader in the private equity space and regularly contributes by speaking at conferences and private equity panels.
His passion is to work with entrepreneurs in building market leading companies. Sandeep currently represents Kaizen on several of Kaizen’s portfolio companies’ Board. Sandeep has a MBA from the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University.
Monica is a Director at Kaizen and she enjoys helping education entrepreneurs build their businesses, while assisting with fund raising and investor relations. She incepted and built her first education company in 2000; the company provided services to K-12 schools, including consulting for IB accreditation and career counseling. In 2003, she brought university relationships to the American National College (ANC) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Monica began her second company in 2006, one which provided vocational courses to students in the retail, real estate and banking & finance industry segments. Monica was involved in developing the pedagogy and curriculum for these courses, which had an embedded “earn while you learn model”. She has been engrossed in operations in both the companies, a role which she thoroughly enjoyed. Monica has an MBA in International Business from Thunderbird, School of Global Management, USA.
