People Effect Change

At Xpheno, Kamal supports Sales, Marketing, Technology Initiatives and manages Investor Relations.

From wanting to be a Bollywood actor, to then a politician to studying microbiology Kamal finally found his calling in helping people find theirs!

He started his career in sales, and took to it with such ease that 'influencing' went on to become his predominant skill for life. After his first 7 years in sales he had the unique experience of working for both, a Fortune 500 MNC, Eli Lilly and VC-funded Biotech start-up, XCyton.

Kamal's evolution as a leader was complete by the time he had put in a total of 16 years at Ma Foi Randstad and Kelly Services. At Ma Foi he spent the majority of his tenure managing the APAC Operations where he launched recruitment operations across China, Hong Kong, Singapore Malaysia & Thailand. Here he learnt running large cross-border RPOs in the APAC region. This also allowed him to absorb multi-country workplace nuances and observe how the right person in the right job, can have a monumental effect on a company.

His stint as Managing Director of Kelly Services proved to be a turnaround and start-up opportunity woven into one. Here, Kamal recruited a competent team and turned Kelly Services into a high-margin, profitable unit and built KellyOCG’s MSP & RPO ventures in India. During this time, he also took additional responsibility to lead Kelly Malaysia as their MD. He co-founded the Indian Staffing Federation, an emerging voice on employment in India.

Kamal is a passionate blogger on workplace dynamics and a media commentator on HR practices. A regular multiplex visitor, he enjoys movies in 5 languages, and believes fitness solves pretty much everything!

At Xpheno, Anil leads the People and Culture building initiatives. He supports his leadership team in Customer Relationships, Finance and building Operational Efficiencies.

Anil had two major stints which influenced his staffing industry career. The first one at Ma Foi was a unique journey from Search Consultant to Vice President over a period of 10+ years. Anil contributed to a 13-crore venture blossoming into a 1000-crore staffing company, a journey that he thoroughly enjoyed. He worked across the Northern and Southern regions of India, setting up multiple recruitment offices in tier-2 cities. He ran the largest and most profitable IT vertical during this time.

The second significant stint was as MD of Recruit Group’s India subsidiary, RGF Select. This phase gave him the exposure of launching a large MNC Specialist Recruitment entrant in India.

As the first employee of RGF, he strategised and executed the creation of a new brand, RGF Select in a competitive landscape. He hired a high-calibre team and together they delivered significant growth and profitability. After a six-year stint at the helm, Anil created an able succession and decided it was time for his entrepreneurship journey to begin, and co-founded Xpheno.

Anil grew up playing cricket for his school, club and also captained his college in Bangalore. He loves to spend his ‘Uber’ time reading books on Kindle. He keenly follows, and has strong opinions on the economy, corporate world and Indian politics. He practices yoga to stay fit and be in good humour.

Ambarish serves as an independent Non-Executive Director on the Xpheno board. He guides Xpheno on strategy, investments and governance. Ambarish is Managing Director of RA & Son Pte Ltd, Singapore, an independent advisory firm engaged in facilitating FII investments in Indian private and public equity markets. He has been associated with several PE funds in different capacities. He founded and managed Vasishta Fund, an FII fund, to invest in Indian public markets, between 2003 and 2008.

He has nearly three decades of experience in global financial markets and securities industries. His previous experience includes stints as Vice President with the Global Markets Group of Citibank and as a Principal Financial Officer at the World Bank, Washington D.C. He has advised many large institutional investors, including pension funds, treasuries and central banks around the globe on investment and risk management strategies.

He is non-executive chairman of AppPoint Software Solutions (AppPoint.com), a privately held technology company in Bangalore. He is also on the Advisory Board of AlphaCap India (www.alphacapindia.com). He is a member of IIMPACT (www.iimpact.org), a non-profit organisation engaged in providing access to quality primary education to the girl child, especially those from remote villages and tribal areas across India.

He has also served as a faculty member at several business schools including the Stern School of Business (NYU), McGill University (Montreal), the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Georgetown University (Washington D.C).

He holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the Stern School of Business (NYU), a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad, a B.E. (Electrical Technology & Electronics) from IISc (Bangalore) and a B.Sc. (Physics & Mathematics) from the University of Mysore, India.