Steven B. Gruber is a Managing Partner of Oak Hill, having been with the firm for 15 years, and also serves as non-executive Chairman of ExlService Holdings, Inc. Mr. Gruber has senior responsibility for originating, structuring and managing investments for the firm's healthcare and business and financial services industry groups, as well as overseeing other management activities. He also serves on the boards of American Skiing Company, Blackboard Inc., Caliber Holdings Corporation, Metrika Inc., Travel Centers of America, Inc. and William Scotsman Inc.

Mr. Gruber previously was Founder and Managing Partner of Insurance Partners (and continues to have responsibilities with respect to the disposition of the remaining assets) and was Managing Director and Co-head of High Yield Securities at Lehman Brothers and Managing Director of its merchant banking group. He was a member of Lehman Brothers' Investment Committee as well.

He earned a B.A. degree from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he was a Merrill Fellow.



Sudin Apte is Country Manager and Senior Analyst, Forrester. Based in Pune, India, Mr. Apte is one of the key analysts powering Forrester's offerings for Sourcing and Vendor Management professionals. He is a leading expert on offshore IT and BPO services providers, emerging industry trends, and offshore product development (OPD). It was his landmark research in OPD space that earned him stature of the foremost analyst in this space at present.

For the past 2 years, he has been actively driving Forrester's best-practice lineup for the captive setups of large MNC firms. Being the only analyst covering offshore market on-ground, he closely collaborates with Forrester's global IT services research team on various research projects and assignments that ultimately help Sourcing and Vendor Management professionals develop offshore strategies and select offshore partners.

Mr. Apte has been associated with Forrester Research for more than six years. He set up Forrester's India operations and established the brand in India in a very brief time span. Prior to joining Forrester, Mr. Apte was a vice president of business operations (India), at another research firm. Throughout his career, spanning more than 18 years of professional experience, he was associated with leading Indian and global firms.

In addition, Mr. Apte is actively involved as an advisor and faculty at some of the leading business schools in India. Apart from teaching IT services and market research subjects, he is involved in various industry–academia collaboration activities.


John A. Funk is a partner in Morgan Lewis’ Global Outsourcing Practice. Mr. Funk focuses his practice on outsourcing transactions and has more than 27 years of experience representing clients in complex information technology and business process outsourcing transactions.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Mr. Funk built and led the outsourcing practice of a peer international law firm. He has been featured in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers (2005, 2006, 2007), where he was ranked in the first tier of leading lawyers for U.S. business process outsourcing, and in Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2007), where he was also ranked in the first tier of leading U.S. lawyers in the overall outsourcing category. FAO Today magazine recently named John as a “2007 Superstar: FAO Advisors". Mr. Funk is a frequent lecturer and author on outsourcing topics.

Mr. Funk received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Utah College of Law in 1980, where he was senior editor of the Utah Law Review and was named to the Order of the Coif. He received his B.A., with honors, from Utah State University in 1977. Mr. Druskin is admitted to practice in Texas and California.





Ben Druskin is a Managing Director and Head of Global Services and East Coast Technology Investment Banking at Citigroup. He joined Citigroup in 1993 and has been a member of the Technology Investment Banking Group since 1996. Mr. Druskin has completed and led over 100 Equity, M&A and Fixed Income transactions for global services companies over the last decade. In addition, Mr. Druskin serves on many firm-wide human resources and compensation committees and technology leadership initiatives.

Mr. Druskin has deep senior-level relationships with all major U.S. and Global services companies and has led several repeat transactions for companies such as ACS, Accenture, CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, SAIC and Unisys. Mr. Druskin has also been instrumental in leading numerous landmark transactions in the Indian IT Services and BPO sectors.

Mr. Druskin received an M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a B.A. from Rutgers College. Prior to business school, Mr. Druskin worked in the Financial Management Development Program at American Express.



Marc Silverman is a partner in the Assurance and Advisory Business Service practice at Ernst & Young LLP with over 18 years experience serving various industries including business services, manufacturing and consumer products companies. Mark Silverman has extensive experience coordinating audit activities for multi-national public clients. He is currently the global coordinating partner for EXL Service.











Arjun Sethi is A.T. Kearney’s lead partner for Outsourcing and Offshoring globally. He has worked extensively with Fortune 500s over the past 10 years advising them on their offshoring strategies as well as assisting them with their large scale IT and Transformation initiatives. Arjun’s recent publications include "Execution is Everything: The Keys to Offshore Success", "Offshoring for Long Term Advantage", and "Destination Latin America: A Nearshore Alternative".









Kiran Karnik, as President, NASSCOM – the premier trade body and the “chamber of commerce” for the IT software and services industry in India – Mr. Karnik works closely with the industry, and the Indian Central & State governments to formulate policies and strategies for the advancement of this sector locally as well as internationally. His key functions are to build global brand equity for the Indian software and service industry, to enhance India’s position as the premier off-shoring destination.

By providing perspective and background information, Mr. Karnik has been instrumental in promoting India’s technology strength to the world.

Prior to joining NASSCOM in 2001, Mr. Karnik was the Managing Director at Discovery Networks in India where he spearheaded the launch of Discovery Channel in South Asia in August 1995. Earlier, Mr. Karnik worked for over 20 years at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), where he held various positions including that of Founder-Director of ISRO’s Development and Educational Communicational Unit.

He has been a member of many key government committees, and is presently a member of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister.



Dr. Mohan Sawhney is the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology and the Director of the Center for Research in Technology and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Prof. Sawhney is a globally recognized scholar, teacher, consultant and speaker in strategic marketing, e-business and innovation. His research and teaching interests include collaborative marketing with customers, IT and business agility, customer-centric organization design, organic growth and business innovation. He has been widely recognized as a thought leader. Business Week named him as one of the 25 most influential people in e-Business. Crain’s Chicago Business named him a member of “40 under 40”, a select group of young business leaders in the Chicago area. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum.

Prof. Sawhney is the co-author of four books. His most recent book, The Global Brain: Your Roadmap for Innovating Smarter and Faster in the Networked World will be published in November 2007. His research has been published in leading journals like California Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Management Science, Marketing Science, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He has won several awards for his research and teaching, most recently the Sidney Levy Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Kellogg School in 2006.



Lois A. Hedg-peth is currently the Customer Services Director for British Gas, the largest provider of gas and electricity to homes in the United Kingdom. Ms. Hedg-peth is responsible for the UK front office operations as well as the back office operations in India. Ms. Hedg-peth has held a variety of positions for Centrica including leading the formation and growth of their United States operations. Prior to that, Ms. Hedg-peth held various general management positions in the telecommunications industry in the U.S., including heading up AT&T’s domestic long distance business during a key market share recovery period. Ms. Hedg-peth has served on the board of the California Cable Television Association, the USC Center for Telecommunications Management and other not-for-profit boards. Ms. Hedg-peth and her husband currently live in Kew, just outside London, UK.


Renee deLassus is the Vice President of Global Sourcing at Travelers Insurance Company. In that role she is charged with all aspects of vendor management, opportunity and vendor due diligence, migration activities and steady state governance. She brings 20 years of experience to this role having spent time on both the vendor and client sides of the equation. Prior to her current role, she has held various positions in IT Application Management, IT Outsourcing, and Project and Program Management, all in support of the financial services industry.



Chris Sherman joined Indymac in October 2006 as the head of Indymac’s Global and Non-Traditional Workforce. Global Resources is responsible for improving Indymac’s competitive position by enabling business and staff units to lower costs, standardize processes, increase productivity and labor efficiencies and increase customer satisfaction and quality. The non-traditional workforce group is tasked with managing the temporary workforce, including contractors and consultants. In this capacity Chris is responsible for the company’s strategy, efficient use of temporary resources and effective implementation of the temporary workforce strategy.

Mr. Sherman served in a number of key management roles including: President of three different subsidiaries – Pacific Enterprises International (which he co-founded with the Chairman and CEO of Pacific Enterprises), Pacific Energy (an alternative energy business) and Pacific Enterprises Leasing Company.


Mr. Sherman is Chairman of the Board of Managers for the Pasadena YMCA and serves as a member of the Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Metropolitan YMCA. Additionally, Chris serves as a member of the Parents and Grandparents Fund Committee for Dartmouth College.

Mr. Sherman has a B.S. with Honors in Economics from Purdue University and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.


Rick Gradone is an Executive Vice President in the Commercial Lending group at National City. National City is the 9th largest US based financial institution, with over $140 billion in assets. Prior to his current role, Rick was the Group CFO over National City’s five mortgage-related businesses. Before joining National City in 2000, Rick spent 13 years with Ernst & Young’s Consulting and Accounting practices serving financial services companies.



Sandeep Tyagi founded Inductis, an EXL company in June 2000. He is responsible for setting the direction for EXL’s knowledge services, building and sustaining a winning culture and developing new business opportunities. He has also led several engagements for large companies in the areas of high-end analytics, outsourcing, marketing strategy and technology.

Mr. Tyagi has advised Fortune 100 clients for over 15 years. While a partner at the Mitchell Madison Group (MMG), a leading strategy consulting firm, he was also the leader of the Pricing and Product Design Practice and co-leader of the eCommerce Practice. While at MMG, Sandeep headed up strategy engagements in investment optimization, reengineering, risk analytics and new product development.

Mr. Tyagi holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BTech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.