TiE-Boston held its Annual Gala Dinner on November 18 at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, MA. Over 120 people including Charter members and Sponsors attended to celebrate another year of successful activities of TiE-Boston. The evening’s agenda included a keynote address, comments from the Chief Guest and the Awards ceremony that honored the accomplishments of members who have built great companies and created immense value for the community. It was a moment to thank all sponsors, supporters and volunteers of TiE-Boston for programs.

The Keynote address was given by Brooks Zug, Senior Managing Director & Founder of HarbourVest Partners. Zug gave an overview of the history and market cycles of the Global VC industry from the 1960's to today. He spoke about the cycles that go from peak to trough periods in the global economy, and how VC industry was affected in U.S. and India over these years. He cited very interesting examples of the important inventions during the period, key companies which got started, funded or had IPOs and fluctuations in the stock market. He was optimistic that the world has been through many of these cycles and hence this one will also pass leading us to the next peak!

Chief Guest, Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School in his brief comments spoke about entrepreneurship, and acknowledged that, "I have spent all my life studying and teaching entrepreneurship but I really admire all those people who had the courage to innovate and build remarkable companies and become successful entrepreneurs." He said business is the engine of prosperity of any society and entrepreneurs are the center of that activity. He further said that as we, the US economy, regenerates it needs this engine to work even more so. He looked to the group of entrepreneurs in the room to lead this recovery. He was optimistic that great ideas and companies like Sycamore, Netezza, Starent, IBM and Microsoft would be started by TiE Entrepreneurs. Nitin’s comments were very inspiring and truly delighted the entrepreneurs in the audience.

The room was filled with excitement as the Awards were announced.  Casey Gibbons of Commonwealth Ventures Partners and Prithvi Tanwar from Foley Hoag (both representing TiE Boston sponsor companies) announced the awards as they spoke about their own involvement with TiE-Boston programs.

“Celebrating an Entrepreneurial Journey Award” for a life time of achievement was given to Jit Saxena, a serial entrepreneur who has contributed immensely to the entrepreneurial community in Boston. Jit has built two successful companies. He co- founded Netezza in 2000 and took it public in 2007.  At Netezza, Jit served as CEO and Chairman and built its growth to a position when it was acquired by IBM for $1.7 billion earlier this year. Previously, Jit also founded Applix Inc., a leading provider of analytical CRM software and took the company public in 1994. While at Applix, Jit guided the company to a leadership position in the CRM market and achieved an eight-fold increase in market value subsequent to its IPO. Through his vision, and entrepreneurial talents Jit continued to innovate the business strategy for his companies driving them to new high growth markets.
In his comments Jit Saxena said that entrepreneurship is the biggest gift of philanthropy. When an entrepreneur and his team create value it not only impacts their lives but the lives of many more people. Both society and the community are impacted by the number of high paying jobs and a stimulating environment that is developed. Jit’s own success became real for him when he narrated an anecdote of an engineer from Applix, whom he met recently. Jit was overwhelmed with happiness when the engineer thanked him for building a great company through which he was able to pay for college education of his children and the mortgage on his house. Jit’s hope for the audience was that others would follow his path and accomplish the same and it’s that which makes life worth living for. Jit’s powerful words to the audience about his entrepreneurial experiences were applauded with a standing ovation for his life’s work.

The Award for Community Leadership was given to Puran Dang in recognition of his extraordinary efforts to the Indian American Community in the Greater Boston area. Puran ji has served the community with decades of service by founding and leading many organizations which promote Arts, Culture, Education, economic growth of our community. In his comments he quoted, "Man is not complete without service to the society."

The Crystal Award for a Charter Member who built his company from the ground up was given to Anil Agrawal, Founder of CIMCON Software. Anil founded CIMCON Software in 1987 and has successfully led CIMCON through eighteen years of continuous growth. CIMCON is a global player in providing integrated hardware/software and compliance solutions to the pharmaceutical and other regulated industries.

The Award for Successful Woman Entrepreneur was given to Asa Kalavade of Umber Systems which provides intelligent monitoring and analytics of mobile data usage across applications, devices, networks and locations. Previously Asa also founded Tatara Systems and has worked for several start ups and Bell Labs.

Awards for 'Entrepreneurial Achievement' were given to three categories of companies: successful exit, funding or growth: in this category an award was given to Pratap Malik, founder of Waban Group acquired by Phase Forward and Nanda Krish for a successful exit for his company Mirrus Systems Inc. Ash Ashutosh of Actifio, Kedar Gupta of Arc-Energy and Ganesh Venkataraman of Momenta Pharmaceuticals were applauded for closing a round of funding and growth of their ventures. Srinivas Bhopal of Boston Technology Corporation and Sushil Tuli of Leader Bank received awards for being featured this year in Inc. magazine’s list of companies that are growing and contributing to the local economy.

Other awards were given to Charter members who have been successfully running TiE Boston Programs. Kudos to Anupendra Sharma for the leading the Startup Leadership Program, Bilal Zuberi for TiE Enter and Geetha Ramamurthy for the TyE program.

Congratulations to the winners! TiE-Boston would like to thank its Sponsors, Charter members Program chairs, and volunteers their continuous participation and help in organizing our diverse programs that builds the entrepreneurial community in the New England.

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