TiE Boston, one of the region’s largest and leading-edge organizations supporting the Massachusetts entrepreneurial ecosystem that connects entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists, today announced the names of the five judges who selected the organization’s award winners for this year.TiE Boston, the region’s largest organization supporting the Massachusetts entrepreneurial ecosystem and connecting entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists, today announced the winners of its annual awards in various categories. All the winners will be honored at TiE Boston’s annual gala on Dec. 2 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel in Boston, MA.

On the occasion, Yash Shah, President of TiE Boston said, “We are very proud of the winners this year. There was an incredible shortlist of nominations, and we wanted to ensure that the representation of diverse entrepreneurs from Boston is spotlighted. I want to thank the Jury for taking on this tough task and the advisory committee who were responsible for ensuring that the rules and procedures were fairly applied. We look forward to honoring the winners  at our Annual Gala on December 2nd at the Sheraton Boston.”

This 2022 winners of TiE Boston awards are:

• Lifetime Achievement Award: Geeta Aiyer, Founder and President, Boston Common Asset Management
• Venture Capitalist of the Year: Jamie Goldstein, Founder and Partner, Pillar VC
• Rising Entrepreneur of the Year: UroÅ¡ Kuzmanović, CEO and Co-Founder, BioSens8
• Entrepreneur of the Year: Aman Narang, Co-President, Founder, COO and Director, Toast, Inc.
• Award for Corporate Excellence: Rohit Prasad, SVP and Head Scientist, Amazon Alexa
• TiE Boston President's Award: Dr. Dinesh Patel, MD, Co-Founder, TiE Boston; Emeritus Chief of Arthroscopic Surgery at Mass General Hospital

David Friend, CEO & Co-Founder of Wasabi Technologies  and a successful business builder, will be the keynote speaker at the gala.

Here are bios of the 2022 Judging Committee:

Anu Chitrapu
Senior Vice President, Bank of America
Past President of TIE Boston

Ms. Chitrapu is Senior Vice-President and Executive at Bank of America. She serves as the Executive Sponsor for the Asian Leadership Network in Boston. Ms Chitrapu has been involved with TiE Boston since 2004 and served as President between 2020 and 2022.  She is on the Board of Advisors for the Museum of Science, Boston and on the advisory boards of Saheli and Direct Action for Women Now (DAWN). She is also an active member of several Boston based non-profit organizations including American India Foundation (AIF).  

She is passionate about women empowerment, eliminating gender based violence, education for girls and protecting the environment. It was this passion that led to the creation of Nyrvaana, a social enterprise with a mission to save fabric from landfill while providing employment to disadvantaged women. She recently created You Can Be, a book for young girls. It inspires them to pursue any profession they like, by showing them examples of accomplished women role models.

Ms Chitrapu holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Yash Shah
Cofounder and Managing Director, Jeavio
President, TiE Boston

Entrepreneur, investor, and tech executive Mr. Shah is the 13th President of TiE Boston, one of the region’s largest and leading-edge organizations supporting the Massachusetts entrepreneurial ecosystem and connecting entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists. In addition, he is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, product advisor, and business executive with over 25 years of IT and software industry experience. He is also on the advisory boards of several software startups around the world.

As a dynamic and successful entrepreneur, Mr. Shah co-founded Jeavio, a venture services firm and plays a critical leadership role in its vision and strategy. He is also the Chief Technology Officer of SevOne, which was recently sold to IBM. In addition, he is a Founding Member of the TiE Boston Foundation, an active member of TiE Boston Angels, and a TiE ScaleUp Mentor. His association with TiE Boston demonstrates longevity of 22 years as a Charter Member and he has served multiple terms on the Board.

Mr Shah has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Clarkson University.

Venkat Srinivasan, PhD
Managing Director, Innospark Ventures

Mr. Srinivasan is a serial entrepreneur and investor. Innospark Ventures is an evergreen venture fund investing in early stage AI led startups. He brings deep expertise in AI and computational algorithms to the firm, especially natural language understanding, combined with deep functional knowledge in multiple domains including operations research, finance and accounting. He has founded several successful AI-led startups, including eCredit, Corporate Fundamentals and Rage Frameworks. More recently he has founded EnglishHelper (using AI to solve illiteracy at scale), GyanAI (first explainable natural language understanding engine), Creda Health (Digital Health Assistant for continuum of care) and PrismX (automated software development platform).

Mr. Srinivasan was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by TiE Boston in 2017. He holds 9 patents, has published over 30 research papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, has co-edited two books and is the author of a book titled, The Intelligent Enterprise in the Era of Big Data (Wiley, 2017). He has strongly advocated for and believes that successful AI-led transformation will be characterized by explainability, traceability, context awareness and the ability to learn from sparse data environments.

Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Mr. Srinivasan served as an Associate Professor at the D’More-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University.

Meena Subramanyam, Ph.D.
Vice President and Global Program Leader, Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Ms. Subramanyam is Vice President and Global Program Leader in the Oncology therapeutic area at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in Cambridge MA. In this capacity, she oversees the strategic development of therapeutic assets from pre-clinical through clinical development, for regulatory approval and commercialization in multiple solid tumor indications. She also serves as the Portfolio Lead for the COBRA Immune Cell Engager platform.

Previously, Ms. Subramanyam was Vice President at Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the Global Biomarker Discovery and Development Division and Head of the Translational Sciences and Technology group. She has served as President and Chair of the Board, Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology (WEST) and as Chair of the National Biotechnology Conference sponsored by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). She has won several leadership awards, including the Luminary Award from the Healthcare Business Women’s Association and the Global Leader Award from AAPS. Ms. Subramanyam, a charter member of TiE Boston, currently serves on the Board of Portal Instruments Inc., the National Board of Ekal Vidyalaya, USA and the New England Board of American India Foundation.

Praveen Tailam
Founder, Redtail Consulting
Former Chairman, TiE Global Board of Trustees
Past President of TIE Boston

Mr. Tailam is an entrepreneur, investor, business advisor, speaker, mentor, and philanthropist with strong connections to entrepreneurial ecosystems in USA and India. Praveen was the Chairman of the TiE Global Board of Trustees. TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) fosters entrepreneurship worldwide with almost 60 chapters. Before becoming the chair, he served as the President of the TiE Boston chapter and bringing was the President of the TiE Boston chapter. Mr. Tailam is knowledgeable about trends in business and technology and passionate about strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem. He frequently engages with investors and industry experts on the best place to deploy intellectual and investment capital. Through his ties with universities, incubators, and accelerators, he offers help and support to promising young entrepreneurs. Praveen was instrumental in establishing and building TiE Global Angels, an early-stage investment group, inducting over 500 angel investors worldwide and investing in many sectors, including technology, healthcare, cleantech, social enterprise, etc.

Mr. Tailam consistently advises and mentors startups, invests in promising startups, speaks at conferences, and judges business plan competitions at various universities and incubators. He co-manages multiple dental practices in New Hampshire and Maine in partnership with Aspen Dental, a leading nationwide Dental Service Organization. He founded Redtail Consulting, a Boston area IT consulting practice. Additionally, before starting businesses, he managed enterprise-scale messaging systems for companies in the technology, banking, and insurance sectors, including IBM, Putnam Investments, and Wellpoint BCBS.

Mr. Tailam holds a Master's Degree in Information Systems from Northeastern University and a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University. He enjoys music and travel and is an avid golfer, cricketer, and squash player.

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