Leadership & Governance
Leadership Team
V K Mathews
V K Mathews is the Founder and Executive Chairman of The IBS Group. Mathews founded IBS in 1997 with a vision to redefine the way the global travel, transportation and logistics industries managed their businesses. With over 17 years of in-depth understanding of the aviation industry, having served Emirates for over a decade, Mathews set out to fulfill his vision for the industry with just 55 employees joining him in his entrepreneurial venture. IBS today is a multinational corporation, serving over 200 clients worldwide, employing over 3000 professionals from 30 different nationalities and poised to be the No. 1 IT solution provider to the global air transportation industry. Mathews was instrumental in IBS acquiring six international companies (in Europe, USA and India) during its 20 year journey which has added its portfolio of offerings to some of the best airlines, busiest airports, leading cruise lines, top oil & gas companies and renowned travel distributors & hotel groups in the world.
With over 30 years of work experience, Mathews is a thought leader and a specialist in aviation business. He is a much sought after speaker at various global aviation events including those organized by IATA, ICAO and AACO.
Mathews holds several important positions in Government agencies, academic institutions and trade bodies in India. He was the Executive Council Member of NASSCOM, the premier trade body of the IT-BPO industries in India and has served as the Chairman of the NASSCOM Regional Council. He currently chairs several institutions including Trivandrum Agenda Task Force and Trivandrum CityConnect Foundation. He is a Member of the Kerala Chief Minister’s High Power IT Committee (HPIC), as well as the Advisory Body of the Kerala State Higher Education Council and a Member of the Board of Directors of Kerala ICT Academy and Technopark, Kerala, India. Mathews is the past Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Kerala and a current member of CII Southern Regional Council. He has received several awards from the Government, media and trade associations including Management Leadership Award, Business Man of the Year Award, IT Man of the Year Award, Millennium Leadership Award and Enterprise Excellence Award.
Mathews holds a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and had executive management education from Harvard Business School, Boston, USA.
Anand Krishnan
Anand comes with a 20-yr track record of building high-growth software businesses. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice-President at Canonical Software where he led the commercialization and growth of the Ubuntu business. Prior to that, he held several executive positions over a decade at Microsoft Corp and was responsible for launching and growing Microsoft’s Cloud business internationally. Before that, he was an early-hire at enterprise software startup Trilogy Software and helped scale the company to triple-digit millions in revenues. Anand holds a Masters in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas and an MBA from Stanford University. He remains based in London.
Ashish Nanda
Ashish Nanda is an experienced finance professional, with almost 23 years of extensive service at the helm of financial services at various enterprises. Prior to joining IBS, Ashish was the CFO at Signature Global Group, leading key areas like Finance, Accounts and Legal & Secretarial functions, investor relations, IPO processes and their end-to-end digital transformation. He has served as Chief Financial Officer at Nucleus Software Exports Ltd, a BSE/NSE listed IT products/services company, where he was responsible for driving key improvements across multiple functions including Strategic Planning, pricing, taxation, board reporting and governance. He played key roles in significantly improving shareholder values and managed the various mergers and acquisitions at Nucleus. He has also held leadership positions in finance at NIIT Ltd, and was responsible for business finance of all three functions like IT/ ITES, Education and Training.
Jitendra Sindhwani
Jitendra Sindhwani is the President & Head of Global Sales and Marketing.
Jitendra, fondly known as Jimpy, is a veteran professional who has made a mark in the global technology arena with over 19 years of diverse experience in management consulting and IT services for different verticals – Communications, Media and Entertainment. Prior to joining IBS, he was with technology services giant Infosys for 16 years and has contributed significantly to the company’s growth across different regions, clients and verticals. Jimpy, who has spent most of his working life in USA, has also led several strategic projects including M&A initiatives, penetrating into the emerging digital and SMAC space. Jimpy brings on board a multitude of professional competencies and strong people leadership skills to supplement the business growth objectives of IBS.
In his new role, Jimpy will chart out new strategies to broaden IBS’ footprint in the aviation business, penetrate unchartered geographies, strengthen current engagements, thus consolidating IBS’ dominant presence in the Travel, Transportation and logistics technology space. In an industry marked by fierce competition, Jimpy will focus on helping customers stay ahead by facilitating business innovation and supporting these game changing processes using next generation systems. Jimpy completed Engineering from IIT Delhi, India and is a Post Graduate in Management from IIM Bangalore, India. He lives with his family in USA and will be based out of Washington DC.
Peter Krebs
Peter Krebs brings more than 20 years experience in the travel technology industry with a strong background in strategy development and executive management. Prior to IBS, he was the CEO of Atraxis North America (IT company in Swissair Group). Peter is a native of Denmark, educated at Copenhagen Business School, supplemented with courses under the MBA program at Henley Business School in the UK.
Akshay Shrivastava
Akshay Shrivastava is Senior Vice President and head of IBS’ Consulting & Digital Transformation business for the travel, transportation and logistics industry globally.
Having joined IBS in July 2008 as head of its Cargo Line of Business, Akshay was responsible for expanding iCargo’s global footprint - making IBS one of the leading IT solutions providers to the air cargo industry. In the following years, in his roles as Chief Delivery Officer and Global Head of Business Solutions & Service Delivery, Akshay led IBS’ 1500 plus global team to deliver IBS’ products and services to more than 170 customers worldwide.
Under his leadership IBS’ consulting business has grown many folds in recent years. IBS has formulated a number of strategic partnerships with its customers, enabling their digital transformation and innovation journeys.
Prior to joining IBS, Akshay worked with the Emirates Group in Dubai in various capacities. He takes special pride in the fact that he and his team successfully formulated and executed an IT strategy for Emirates SkyCargo that played an important role in making it a world leader in the air freight industry.
In a career of over 25 years in travel technology, Akshay has been involved in major IT and business initiatives for a number of travel companies, airlines and airport handlers around the world. His diverse industry experience includes managing large multicultural teams and a global customer base while building and effectively executing strategies, successfully delivering large complex projects, creating products for the industry, and leading large global IT products & service businesses.
Akshay holds a Masters’ Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He also has a Masters’ Degree in Physics.
Jayan P
Jayan is the Senior Vice President & Head of Global Human Resources. He is responsible for developing the HR organization as a credible business partner for IBS as it enters its next stage of growth.
With over 19 years of experience at IBS alone, his leadership and management skills have spanned different functions within the Company – Global Service Delivery, Production Services and Line of Business (LoB) management.
In his previous role, Jayan headed the Software Services LoB, responsible for acquiring several large and well-known customer accounts. Prior to this, he successfully set up the Production Services wing of IBS that manages Resources Deployment, Project Management, Technology Competence and Network Services. Jayan was also instrumental in setting up and managing IBS’ Technology Consulting Division and played a key role in the international level quality certifications of the Company, defining and institutionalizing several processes and policies within the organization. His understanding of current market dynamics helped him set up different organization-wide initiatives like Product Certification and Productivity Improvement programs.
Jayan holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the University of Kerala. Prior to joining IBS in 1997, Jayan had a brief stint with the Steel Authority of India (SAIL).
Christopher Branagan
Chris is an experienced CTO and comes to IBS with over 30 years of experience shaping tech strategy and driving large transformation projects. He has worked extensively in scaled organizations with experience covering B2B, B2C and eCommerce. Most recently, Chris was CTO at Hotelbeds Group – a 7 billion Euro global business processing 4 billion searches daily – where he was tasked with merging Hotelbeds, GTA and Tourico into a common trading platform and a consolidated technology footprint. Chris also created and implemented a new operating model for the combined technology teams and drove the transition of the organization to Agile, Cloud & DevOps. Prior to this role, Chris was CTO at Kuoni GTA – a leading travel distribution company - where he led the modernization of the technology stack and brought an integrated approach to digital commerce. Before joining Kuoni, Chris was at Tesco where he led the replacement of Tesco’s direct web platform with a marketplace platform. Chris was also previously CTO at EasyCar (part of the EasyGroup companies).
Arun Hrishikesan
Arun Hrishikesan is the Senior Vice President for the Innovation Eco system as IBS Software and is responsible for collaboration with leading universities in the world, active participation in the start-up ecosystem and tech fraternity across the world that will help in leading-edge technology adoption, patentable IP creation, developing a team of technology leaders for the company and maintain thought-leadership position in the market.
Having joined IBS in its founding years, Arun played a significant role in crafting the success story of IBS. He played several roles in IBS from product development to service delivery, pre-sales to technology and has been instrumental in many business initiatives of the company. In his earlier role as head of Global Service Delivery and member of the Executive Management Team, Arun was responsible for development and implementation of all IBS products and solutions globally. He was the founding member of the Cargo initiative of IBS, which is now a leader in the Cargo Management space of the aviation industry.
Prior to joining IBS, Arun was with Hewlett Packard working on Distributed Computing Environment for HP-UX, and with the Indian Space Research Organization on development of onboard computer systems for India's satellite launch vehicles. Arun is a graduate in Applied Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering, from College of Engineering, Trivandrum and a post graduate in Systems Science & Automation from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.
James Blamey
James is Vice President of Corporate Communications, responsible for developing and managing IBS Software's external communications strategies, covering corporate communications, storytelling, product PR, media & analyst relations and web & social outreach. With more than 20 years of experience in communications, James has worked in some of the world’s most innovative technology companies. Before joining IBS Software in 2019, James was Director of Communications at Microsoft, Skype and Veritas Technologies, breaking down barriers of communication with thought leadership and ground breaking stories of innovation, leading global teams and key responsibilities for global PR and AR activities.
Ashok Rajan
Ashok is a Senior Vice President & Head of the Cargo & Logistics Business. Having spent close to 20 years with IBS, he has grown through the ranks of the organization to be currently heading one of IBS’ most successful businesses and is a member of the Senior Leadership Team of the company.
A domain and technology specialist, he has played varied roles in the organization from heading product design and engineering functions, to program management to marketing and business development. His credentials include conceptualizing the first ever new-generation platform for the air-freight industry, program managing major transformation programs at some of the biggest airlines in the world and being at the helm of a major market expansion initiative that resulted in a record number of customer acquisitions by any provider in the industry in a single year, thus positioning IBS to be the undisputed leader in the air freight technology space.
Ashok is a much sought after speaker on the air cargo conference circuit. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from the Cochin University of Science and Technology.
Mathew M Baby
Mathew is a Senior Vice President & Head of the Aviation Operations Solutions business for IBS, consisting of Airline Operations Solutions, Airline Engineering Solutions, and Airport Solutions.
Being part of IBS from day one, Mathew has served in several roles from product management to service delivery, pre-sales to business operations/development and has spearheaded many business initiatives of IBS over the years. In his earlier roles, Mathew was one of the founding member of the Cargo initiative of IBS, and as the head of Airline Cargo business, was instrumental in making iCargo a leader in the Cargo Management Solution space for the air transportation industry. Mathew currently oversees the development and delivery of iFlight NEO – the next-gen digital platform for airline operations from IBS.
Mathew is a graduate in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and a post graduate in Control Systems Engineering from University of Kerala, Trivandrum.
David Friderici
David Friderici is Senior Vice President and Head of Aviation Passenger Solutions at IBS Software.
David joined IBS in 2010 tasked with the objective of defining strategy and leading product management for the IBS Passenger Service System (PSS), iFly Res.
He is currently the head of IBS’ Aviation Passenger Solution business comprising of the PSS product and the new airline retailing product, iFly Retail. With over 27 years of experience in travel technology, David uses his deep and comprehensive understanding of the industry to set out the vision and roadmap for this line of business.
Since 2013 David is also part of the IATA NDC and ONE Order working groups and advisory forums, where he provides expert contribution to help shape the future of Airline Distribution and Retailing, fuelled by his strong belief that the airline industry is overdue for disruption.
David started his career at Hitchhiker GmbH building airfare management systems, air shopping and pricing platforms and eCommerce solutions for the travel industry.
Prior to joining IBS Software, David held various roles at Hitchhiker and Buchungsmaschine, including Director of eCommerce and Director of Product Strategy, where he led critical projects with brands like Expedia, Kuoni, HotelPlan and major airlines like KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, British Airways and American Airlines.
Asish Koshy
Asish is Vice President & Head of the Tour & Cruise Business for IBS Software. In this role, he is responsible for a range of next generation solutions offered to these industry verticals.
Asish has been part of the IBS team since its inception and has served in several roles from product management to service delivery to business development with professional experience both in the United States and India. In his earlier roles, Asish was instrumental in the launch of IBS’ Energy & Logistics practice, working closely with leading oil & gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico. He was also responsible for heading the service delivery in the Americas region.
A thought leader in the cruise domain, Asish has vast experience in enabling business transformation through use of technology and he has conceptualized iTravel-Cruise, IBS’ next generation digital platform offering for the cruise industry.
Christman Korah
Christman Korah is Associate Vice President & Head of Hospitality Solutions at IBS Software. A CRM & Loyalty domain and technology specialist, Christman comes with over 18 years of experience, of which 13 have been with IBS. He has played varied roles in the organization from heading product strategy, product pre-sales and key account management. Before moving to the hospitality line of business, he was heading Sales & Marketing in South Asia. He has been instrumental in the significant growth of the IBS’ Loyalty line of business. Prior to joining IBS, Christman was a CRM practitioner and a Senior Business Consultant with IBM Business Consulting Services, India. He has also held senior position with ICICI Bank and was responsible for pan-India rollout of their CRM.
Marcus Puffer
Marcus Puffer is Vice President & Head of Loyalty Management Solutions at IBS Software. In this role, he is responsible for the loyalty product suite, a next generation platform carrying out some of the most successful customer engagement programs in travel and transportation. Before his almost 6 years tenure with IBS, Marcus has served as General Manager of topbonus, airberlin’s loyalty program and the second largest frequent flyer program in Germany with more than 3mn members and over 120 partners. He successfully managed the corporatization of topbonus and subsequent sale of 70% to Etihad Airways. Prior to that, he spent a decade at Star Alliance - the leading global airline alliance - in roles spanning Network and Membership Development. Marcus started his career with Austrian Airlines with a focus on market research and long term network planning.
Manu K P
Manu K P heads the Energy & Resources Logistics business of IBS software. In this role, he is responsible for a range of integrated solutions that enable energy & resources companies worldwide to take control of their end-to-end people and material supply chain. With diverse experience over 20 years across multiple domains, Manu has been focussing on leading transformation programs for the ERL sector across the globe in the last decade. Into his seventh year with IBS Software, he has played many roles in the organization including service delivery, product development and driving organisational excellence initiatives.
Prior to joining IBS, Manu worked with Infosys for 15 years, where he was leading a portfolio of energy companies.
Sam Shukla
Sam Shukla is the VP and Head of Americas Region Sales at IBS Software. In this role, he is responsible for creating regional sales strategies that broaden the footprint of IBS Software’s commercial and operations solutions. In addition, Sam liaises with C suite leadership at airlines and cruise lines to devise solutions that improve competitive positioning and revenues, while reducing operating costs. Prior to joining IBS Software in January 2019, Sam held director level positions at Sabre Airline Solutions over a 16 year period. Sam began his airline industry career with Continental Airlines, where over a span of 10 years he successfully held positions in Newark Hub Operations, Aircraft Scheduling, Route Planning and Revenue Analysis Departments. In addition, Sam holds a commercial pilot’s license with instrument rating, multi-engine land license, with flight instructor certificate, and has logged 620 hours of flight time.
Gautam Shekar
Gautam Shekar is Senior Vice President and Head of the Asia Pacific region, based in Singapore.
Gautam has over 20 years of experience in the management consulting and technology space. He has executed various leadership roles spanning strategy, sales & marketing, operations & M&A in North America, Europe and Asia. During this time, he worked across industries including manufacturing, media, telecommunications and aviation. Prior to joining IBS, Gautam worked with industry majors like Accenture, Booz Allen and Hamilton and Infosys ltd.
Gautam is an alumnus of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani, India and the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in the United States.
Ryo Funakoshi
Ryo Funakoshi is a Senior Vice President & Head of Operations - East Asia.
With over 25 years of experience in the aviation industry, Ryo is an exceptionally keen leader. He was instrumental in the launch and inspiring growth of IBS East Asia, signing up several marquee clients from the region over the last decade. Prior to joining IBS in 2006, Ryo spent close to a decade and a half working with technology conglomerate Unisys, where he gained significant expertise in the business of IT solutions for the air travel and cargo industries.
Ryo’s insights and grasp of East Asian business practices continues to fuel IBS’ expansion strategies in the heavily competitive but richly rewarding aviation market in the region. Living in Tokyo with his family, Ryo greatly enjoys music in various forms.
Ben Simmons
Ben Simmons is the VP and regional Head of Europe and Africa, based out of Paris, France. He joined IBS at the beginning of 2022 and is responsible for sales of the IBS portfolio across the region. Prior to IBS, he spent over 15 years in commercial roles in Amadeus. He has worked across the globe with the spectrum of airlines, from start-up hybrids to large and mature alliance airlines, selling a varied portfolio of software, consultancy services and program work. Ben also has extensive experience in manufacturing and IT project management.
Ben holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration.
Philip Hinton
Philip Hinton is a Senior Vice President at IBS Software, based in London. Phil joined IBS in 1993 as part of an acquisition from a division within Honeywell, which specialised in Airline Operations. Prior to Honeywell he worked in senior positions in Fujitsu and ICL.
Phil has been involved in the consultative selling and implementation of mission critical systems to Airlines for over 25 years. His experience spans over Airline and Airport Operations, Crew Management, Cargo, Loyalty Management and Passenger Services. He has worked closely with many of the world’s leading airlines including Air France, Asiana, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
Phil holds an Honors degree in Mathematics
Board of Directors
V K Mathews
With over 30 years of work experience, Mathews is a thought leader and a specialist in aviation business. He is a much sought after speaker at various global aviation events including those organized by IATA, ICAO and AACO.
Mathews holds several important positions in Government agencies, academic institutions and trade bodies in India. He was the Executive Council Member of NASSCOM, the premier trade body of the IT-BPO industries in India and has served as the Chairman of the NASSCOM Regional Council. He currently chairs several institutions including Trivandrum Agenda Task Force and Trivandrum CityConnect Foundation. He is a Member of the Kerala Chief Minister’s High Power IT Committee (HPIC), as well as the Advisory Body of the Kerala State Higher Education Council and a Member of the Board of Directors of Kerala ICT Academy and Technopark, Kerala, India. Mathews is the past Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Kerala and a current member of CII Southern Regional Council. He has received several awards from the Government, media and trade associations including Management Leadership Award, Business Man of the Year Award, IT Man of the Year Award, Millennium Leadership Award and Enterprise Excellence Award.
Mathews holds a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and had executive management education from Harvard Business School, Boston, USA.
Abhay Prabhakar Havaldar
Girish Srikrishna Paranjpe
Girish Paranjpe is the Operating partner at Advent International and serves as an Independent director at IBS Software Services. Having Led Wipro’s IT business worth USD 5.8 billion with an employee strength of over one lakh spread over 54 countries, Mr. Paranjpe Served as the Co-CEO of Wipro’s IT Business from 2008-2011 and was a member of the Board of Directors of Wipro Ltd. He also served as the President – Financial Services Consulting & Marketing from 2002 to 2006, Head - Financial Services for two years until 2002 and CFO – IT Business from 1995-2000. Mr. Paranjpe has represented the IT Industry in various public forums including the Prime Minister's Task Force on Information Technology, the NASSCOM, International Advisory Board of Credit Agricole (top three French Banks) and leading global business schools. He is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India.
Armin Kurt Meier
Armin Meier is the Managing Director at Boyden Zurich. Mr. Meier was the President & CEO of Atraxis (1998–2002), an autonomous IT company within the Swissair group, with which IBS had signed a Joint Venture partnership in the year 2000. From 2002-2005, he served as the Member of the Executive Committee, Head of Logistics & IT at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Meier held an overall executive responsibility as the Group Chief Executive Officer of Kuoni Travel Holding, Zurich, a leading European leisure travel company from 2005-2008. He has since then served as the Chief Commercial Officer for Travelport GDS, UK (2008-2010) with overall responsibility for the commercial aspects of one of the three Global Distribution Systems before becoming the owner and Managing Director of Boyden Global Executive Search, Zurich.
Girija Prasad Pande
Girija Pande is the Executive Chairman of Apex Avalon Consulting Pte. Ltd, , a Singapore-based company that provides strategic consulting, research and analytics to businesses in the fast growing Asia Pacific (APAC) market. He has served on many professional and government think tanks in Singapore and India. Serves on the board of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC) and the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), which is affiliated to the National University of Singapore (NUS). Mr. Pande was the CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) APAC for over a decade where he created a technology business of 11,000 staff in 15 countries for TCS. Having served as a banker with ANZ Banking Group for over two decades and as the Executive Chairman of the ANZ Grindlays Asset Management Company in India, he has also served on the advisory boards of private equity funds focused on India/Technology. Mr. Pande holds an Engineering degree from BITS Pilani and an MBA from India's top business school, IIM Ahmedabad.
Amit Dixit
Amit Dixit is a Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Private Equity in India, based in Mumbai. Since joining Blackstone in 2007, Mr. Dixit has been involved with various investments and investment opportunities in India and South Asia. Previously, Mr. Dixit was a Principal at Warburg Pincus. Mr. Dixit received an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MS in Engineering from Stanford University, and a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Mumbai where he was awarded the Director’s Silver Medal for graduating at the top of his program. He currently serves as a Director of Intelenet Global Services, IBS Software, S.H. Kelkar, Trans Maldivian Airways, Jagran Prakashan, Mid-Day Infomedia, Hindustan Power Projects, Monnet Ispat & Power and NCC. Mr. Dixit was previously a Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and Igarashi Motors India.
Douglas Mark Steenland
Douglas Mark Steenland has served as a member of our board of directors since 2016 as a nominee of Techware Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd, which is an affiliate of Blackstone. Mr. Steenland has been a Senior Advisor of Blackstone since 2009. Prior to that, he was the President at Northwest Airlines Corporation from 2001 to 2004, served as the Chief Executive Officer for four years and held other executive positions in his 17 years at the company. He was also a partner at a law firm (now part of DLA Piper) in Washington D.C. for 13 years and was an attorney at the United States Department of Transportation. He is currently a board member of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and AIG Inc. and previously served as a board member of Travelport LLC and Performance Food Corporation. He has served as the chairman of the board of directors of the Air Transport Association and a board member of the International Air Transport Association. Mr. Steenland holds a Juris Doctor with highest honors from the National Law Center, George Washington University in the United States and a Bachelor’s degree in Arts from Calvin College, Grand Rapids Michigan in the United States.
Committees
We at IBS are committed to the highest standards of corporate governance as we believe these are reflective of our values and critical to our success. Our board of directors oversees the application of our corporate governance practices ensuring transparency and integrity across functions of the IBS Groups’ business.
The purpose of the Audit & Risk Management Committee is to assist the Board of Directors in monitoring:
- Integrity of IBS’ financial statements & financial reporting process
- Compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and IBS code of conduct
- Company’s internal audit function & statutory auditors’ independence and performance
- Adequacy and reliability of the internal control systems