Arjun Anand
- Location
I was born in the south of India, known for its coastlines, classical music and conservative culture; I was hence raised to avoid risk, which is somehow the opposite of what I wanted to do!
In my teenage years I took up rowing crew quite seriously, representing my club and state in several regattas, which allowed me to travel and meet people from different cultures and backgrounds. This pushed me to move as far away from home as possible for university, so I went to the Birla Institute of Technology & Science to study mechanical engineering.
A year into my engineering course, I realized that this wasn’t an area of interest or talent for me, which pushed me to pivot and pursue an MBA at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. It was here in the MBA course that I discovered my curiosity for business, people and how the two come together.
My passion for business led me to become a management consultant with Kearney where I worked with consumer goods, telecom and private equity clients on a range of topics including sales and marketing strategy, cost transformation and organization design. Management consulting also presented me with the opportunity to work and live in many different countries including Australia, Malaysia & Singapore, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
When the opportunity to join Verlinvest and work with daring entrepreneurs presented itself, I jumped on it as it perfectly met my desire to take on more risk with skin-in-the-game and to work with some truly amazing people who were on a mission to change the consumer world for the better.
At Verlinvest, I head our India and South East Asia business and lead our offices in Singapore and Mumbai. I have the pleasure of serving on the boards of Sula Vineyards, Epigamia, Veeba Foods, Purplle.com, Headsupfortails and Wakefit. I also serve as an observer on the board of BYJU’S, Lahori drinks and Juicy Chemistry. The inspiring and incredible journeys of the entrepreneurs that Verlinvest has partnered with are what energize me to dedicate our capital and time to finding the next set of entrepreneurs and pushing the limits on driving consumer revolutions using the power of brand and technology.