The Core Team of Blackboard Education & Research Foundation comprises experienced professionals, leaders, and mentors who are taking our organization and group of companies to the next level with the team. Nurturing the team and creating the Line Managers has always been the endeavour of our Leaders.
Core Team
To deliver the best in the business, we are led by the brightest of the industry
Characterized as initiator, deliberate and persistent change maker, Mayank Gupta is serving as CEO at Blackboard Education & Research Foundation, a young enterprise with more than two decades of experience in the education industry and one of the fast-emerging education and technology enterprises.
He is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of leadership experience in the education & services industry with consistent success in achieving the goals with wide understanding of building businesses.He is passionate towards education, entrepreneurship and Technology.
Post attaining his Master’s in Business Administration, Mayank ventured in executing and consulting several educational projects in skills development and higher education. From his practice of last 25 years in the Education Sector, he has developed a deep understanding of building strategic business units, launching and executing new businesses in both India and abroad.He has seen and witnessed the paradigm shift in almost all aspects from student acquisition activities to education delivery systems.
Prior to his becoming CEO of Blackboard Education & Research Foundation, Mayank was also one of the founder members of Institute of Computer & Finance executive, ICFe (Yr.1996-2013), which was into skilling and imparting vocational training into the domain of finance and accounting. Over 10000 students of ICFe are now working as accountants and finance executives in mid and large size companies
e is excellent in establishing trust-based relations with individuals and organisations which has helped in expanding his business through a network of entrepreneurs, currently he works with 400+ channel & 20 + University Alliance Partners promoting several educational products in skills development and distance learning. Some of the Key Skills & Core Competencies of Mayank includes Management & Leadership, Business Operations & Strategy, Effective Communication & Delegation, Adaptability & Determination, Forward Thinking & Calculated Risk Management.
A career spanning 27 years was kick-started after a good education - a Science Graduation and a Post-Graduation in Mass Communication from IIMC and a quest for learning made him acquire knowledge in brand management from IIM (Lucknow)
Santosh is experienced as a journalist and a communication/brand building practitioner with top-notch media houses and fortune 500 companies like Intel, Microsoft, Novel Onward and HCL.
He’s played a political advisory role, successfully managing various election campaigns for political parties and individual politicians from across the party line.
His successful stint at education entrepreneurship on brands including NIIT, ICFE and Nexgen Edusolutions also stand him in good stead
Post completion of his Bachelor’s in Commerce, Rohit has worked with an Event Management Company for which he has organised & promoted various business and social events. In Yr.2008, he joined vocational company viz. ICFE and contributed in domain of BFSI Certification Courses promotion & implementation of Rural Skilling Programs in the state of Jharkhand & Bihar. In Yr.2014, Rohit formulated a company called ISTI Education Pvt.Ltd. and ventured into Admission Acquisitions Business for Distance Learning Programs.
Since 2013, as a COO of Blackboard Education, Rohit leads the core Admissions and Applicant Services Team of Blackboard. He Designs and implement business strategies, plans and procedures for sourcing Admissions & other Managed IT Services like Contents, LMS, etc. for Alliance Partners (Universities). Rohit is instrumental in establishing policies that promote company culture and vision. He oversees daily operations of the company and the work of executives (IT, Marketing, Sales, Finance etc.). Rohit is not just a business acumen but has ability to effectively manage, lead and supervise a multidisciplinary team.
Sarthak is B Com graduate from Delhi University. He started his career with Stalwart Advisors and has formulated and articulated various Business Analytics Reports about companies which has been considered & enacted by Stalwart for crafting & promoting its portfolio management services.
Since April 2019, Sarthak is associated with Blackboard Education and is driving day-to-day business operations of B2C vertical which includes plan & implementation of business strategy & operations. His young & innovative mind has enabled him to head Digital Marketing department of Blackboard wherein lead generation, lead management & analysis has been his key responsibility.
Ashok holds MBA in Marketing Degree and has broad set of 24 years of experience in Education Industry across Business Development, Operations, Quality Assurance & Monitoring, Franchise Development & Management. Having spent considerable time in Skill Development, Ashok has also acquired expertise in various Skill Project Acquisition & Implementation. Partial list of EdTech Training Companies he has worked with includes NIIT, Tata Infotech Ltd., Aptech Ltd., Manipal Global Education. He has promoted Higher Education & Cutting- Edge Technology Programs- Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe, CISCO, etc., through Partner Network. His ability to plan, organize and manage business operations functions has been well acclaimed by his employers. In his current role with Blackboard Education, Ashok spearheads Skill Development /B2G Business.
Ashok strongly believes that Learning becomes more accessible & personalized with advent of Technology. A travel enthusiast, he is fond of exploring new places & learning about its Origins & Culture.
A well learned academician having 23 + years of experience in the area of teaching, administration and various academic activities. She has served in leading universities for more than 15 years. She has vast experience in the education field with a visionary approach. Her motto is to provide quality education to all segments of the society.
She has 20+ years of versatile work experience in Human Resource. She holds PGDM in HR & Marketing from Maharishi Arvind Institute of Science & Management in the year 1998. She had worked with Renowned Indian and MNC Companies like Reliance Jio Ltd., Reliance Retail Ltd., DS Group Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., Ceragon Networks Ltd. and DD Industries Ltd.
In her current association with Blackboard Education, Shalini heads and manages activities such as employee relations, performance management, training & development and talent management.
Shalini strongly believes in creating a valuable, ethical and enduring partnership with all the stakeholders.
Mahender Singh is Graduate in Commerce and has over 17 years of Experience in Education Industry. His functional competencies include all activities of the accounting and tax accounting departments and is involved in the supervision and management of general accounting activities, analyses, business partnership, and the maintenance of effective internal controls while ensuring statutory compliance in all accounting.
He has good exposure on execution of Government Skills Project as well. In his current role as a GM - Project Agriculture of Blackboard Education, Mahender supervises overall Project Agriculture, Accounting, Cashflow Management, MCA/ROC Compliances activities of the Organization. His past association was with ICFE Skills Solutions Pvt.Ltd. & Rise India Group of Companies.
DGM - Accounts & Finance having experience of 7 years in several fields like Education, Media, NBFC, Travel & Tour, Mining etc. Shailesh’s has good exposure of Finance, Accounting, Taxation, MIS, Treasury, AOP, SOPs etc. As head of tax, he has demonstrated leadership on the tax function by designing and embedding the tax strategy within their organisations. He also leads the accounting department in the establishment of risk management procedures as well as the update of those procedures.
