Kumar Ganapathy

Board Member since 2022

Kumar Ganapathy

Board Member

Kumar Ganapathy believes in the power of entrepreneurship to positively impact the world. He has been a serial technology entrepreneur  and angel investor for over 25 years in Silicon Valley.  Recently, he is a founder and Managing Director of 3iPartners, an early stage impact fund that invests in promising social entrepreneurs in India in the areas of Agriculture, Livelihood, Education and Healthcare. 3iPartners’ mission is to enable societal change through entrepreneurship, and has invested in 10+ impact startups in India over the past 2 years. He is an investor and board advisor to Peopleshores (creating tech jobs to underprivileged communities in the US), has recently joined the board of Upaya Ventures, and is associated with other nonprofits in the Bay area and India.

Kumar has founded multiple successful start-ups over the past 25 years across Telecom and Enterprise IT infrastructure : (i) VxTel (acquired by Intel in 2001) for Voice-over-IP carrier technology, (ii) Virident (acquired by Western Digital in 2013) for high-performance flash storage technology, (iii) Enterprise labs, a “foundry” for Enterprise Cloud startups, where he helped launch multiple companies (Akridata, PrimaryIO, Ampool, DeepVision) over the past 5 years. He is currently Chairman of Akridata (Visual AI Platform) and board member at Position2 (Digital advertising), and angel investor in a number of tech startups. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Kumar was Principal Engineer and Fellow of Conexant and Rockwell Semiconductor.

Kumar has received his Ph.D from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC), MS from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology at Chennai. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras, Fellow of Conexant/Rockwell, and Siemens Gold medal winner at IIT. Kumar has over 75 patents and 12 technical publications.  He loves to ski with his wife and two children, as well as hike and travel with friends and family.

Karishma Kiri

Karishma Kiri

Karishma Kiri is a leading Real Estate agent in Washington State, specializing In both home purchases and sales since 2012. Karishma has ranked in the top 1% of agents in Washington State and has been recognized by the industry & peers for the quality and impact of her work.

Prior to entering real estate, Karishma had a strong career in Tech, first with Microsoft where, as a Director, she ran global product management teams, including helping to start the BRIC team, which was the group that created the Unlimited Potential set of programs and incubations. Karishma was responsible for Microsoft’s strategies for the Base-of-the-Pyramid market segment. Another program that Karishma created and launched, was called Project Shiksha. This program was launched by Bill Gates in India, which later became a worldwide program focused on building tech literacy for educators and learners within the education sector.

After Microsoft, Karishma co-built a digital marketing company with a very successful exit. Karishma has an immense passion for the social-entrepreneur space and supporting organizations focused on building businesses that create sustainable, economic impact.

Karishma’s recognitions include: 5-Star Professional five years in a row, Five Star Professional Market Leader in Real Estate (Forbes Magazine), 5-Star Premier Agent (Zillow), 100 Most Influential Real Estate Professionals in Washington (Real Estate Magazine), and many more.

Caroline Vance

Board member since 2020

Caroline Vance

Board Member

Caroline Vance has spent most of her career managing impact investment funds focused on improving access to basic services to low income communities in the developing world.  Twelve years of that time was spent at Deutsche Bank and DWS, the bank’s asset management firm, where she was most recently a Director on the Sustainable Investments team, which was mandated to create and manage private debt and equity funds with social and environmental outcomes associated with them.   

As a portfolio and investment manager, she has originated and managed loans to microfinance institutions and social enterprises, particularly those operating in health, energy access, and alternative financial services, and she has structured and launched funds, with ongoing responsibility for the portfolios.  In addition, she has developed and implemented impact management frameworks to deliver on the funds’ impact theses. 

Caroline started her career in investment banking at Lehman Brothers.  She received her BA from Williams College and an MA in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and she is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

She is proud to have been a founding Board member of Upaya Social Ventures, and she was thrilled to return to the Board for a second run in 2020.