Speakers

Pinaki, a creative missionary and a digital explorer, has been in the high-tech industry for 26+ years. A nuclear & particle physicist by training, Pinaki’s work on high-end
simulation for the DoD and NOAA led him to the industry when dotcom was coming to life back in 1998. He played a leadership role designing auction sites for Priceline.com and building enterprise systems for Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Federal Government. Pinaki spent 9 years in JPMorgan Chase leading FinTech and CRM programs in the Commercial Banking group and was instrumental in the Commercial Bank customer data migration during Bank One, J.P.Morgan, and Washington Mutual mergers.

After Chase, Pinaki co-founded 6 startups in the consumer Internet space involving video streaming, IoT, MARTECH, and Oncology. He helped to raise millions in seed funding and created platforms for Sundance Film Festival, Univ. of Southern California, Disney, Samsung, Bacardi, Kraft-Heinz, Philips, Genentech, and many more. He is actively engaged in the startup communities in Chicago and Silicon Valley, helping early-stage teams with strategy, product-market fit, and development expertise. His agency, Anshar Labs, is a 14-year-old digital product delivery company with 250-plus technologists and product innovators. It helps mid-market and Fortune 100 enterprises to evaluate data-driven decision-making and strategic product initiatives that drive higher ROI through customer retention and personalization.

Over the last decade, Pinaki has been passionately designing consumer-centric digital platforms in media-tech, ed-tech, and health-tech. With a background in metrics and user experiences, he continues to drive entrepreneurial ventures that enrich and elevate lifestyle activities every day. Pinaki’s deep insights into customer acquisition, online commerce, and product search and discovery bring a combination of technology and business development in the play. Pinaki was invited to join the Founder Institute as a mentor at the Chicago location to help cultivate pre-seed teams and new venture opportunities. He has been actively supporting several incubators as a mentor and strategic advisor for the last several years.

Pinaki earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. His work and thoughts have been published in highly coveted media such as TIME, FOX, WGN, NBC5, CASSANDRA DAILY (a CAA company publication) and TECHCRUNCH. A comprehensive list of Pinaki’s pursuits can be found at https://linkedin.com/pinakisaha.