Namaste World Acquisition Corporation
MANAGEMENT & BOARD
Executive Officers
Suresh Guduru, 49
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Mr. Guduru has served as the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Softengg, Inc., a software and technology services company since September 1998. Mr. Guduru has served as the Chairman and Director of Royal Treasures, Inc., a retail and wholesale food business, since May 2002. Mr. Guduru has also served as the Managing Member and Director of Green Foods, LLC, an import, grocery and hospitality business, since 2008. He has also served as the Chief Executive Officer of Organic Ingredients, Inc., a food and hospitality business, and President of Oakmead Village LLC, a real-estate business, since April 2012 and December 2012, respectively. In addition, Mr. Guduru has served as Chairman and Director of Gallant Services, Inc., a retail and wholesale food business, since August 2015 and as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Yuvika, Inc., a jewelry and accessories business, since September 2020. Moreover, Mr. Guduru has served as the Managing Member of AbSoMa LLC, an investments and real-estate holdings company, since June 2021. Mr. Guduru obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering in 1994 from Nagarjuna University, and his Masters of Technology in Computer Science from University of Hyderabad in 1997.
Suresh Singamsetty, 48
Chief Financial Officer and Director
Mr. Singamsetty serves as CEO of WiSilica Inc. from June 2013, and also as Director of WiSilica Inc., and its subsidiary namely WiSilica India Pvt. Ltd. WiSilica is a technology company with more than 130 employees, providing scalable IoT platform solutions. Mr. Singamsetty also serves as CTO of Tracesafe Inc. (CSE: TSF), a publicly listed technology company focusing on safety-based wearable technology, from May 2020. Tracesafe Inc. acquired WiSilica’s wearable unit that provides contact tracing and quarantine solution for governments, and enterprises. Additionally, Mr. Singamsetty co-founded Transilica Inc., a developer of chips based on Bluetooth technology which was acquired by Microtune Inc. and served as its Director of Software Engineering from 2000 to 2003. Mr. Singamsetty also co-founded Martian Watches, a company manufacturing the first watch to utilize voice command, and served as its V.P. of Engineering from 2008 to 2013. He also co-founded Jaalaa Inc., a low power wireless semiconductor company, and served as its V.P. of Digital Engineering from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Singamsetty holds a Master of Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Kishore Kondragunta, 46
Chief Investment Officer and Secretary
Mr. Kondragunta is a seasoned IT executive, investor, and business owner. Mr. Kondragunta has served as an IT Senior Director at Intel Corporation since March 2019. Previous to his time at Intel, Mr. Kondragunta served as a Tech Program Manager at Apple, Inc. from 2008 to 2012 and IT Senior director at Oracle from 2012 to 2019. Mr. Kondragunta founded his own private equity firm, Pre IPO Offerings, in 2015, and has raised over $100 million in capital across multiple deals. Mr. Kondragunta also owns Bay Realty Investments, a real-estate company which invests in land and the construction sector since 2016. Bay Realty Investments is currently executing several projects simultaneously, including single-family homes and a mega project of 58 acres in the San Francisco Bay area. Mr. Kondragunta also operates in the hospitality space where he owns a high-end chain of restaurants and of retail supermarkets, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Moreover, Mr. Kondragunta has served as the Managing Member and Director of Lobster Venture LLC, a restaurant chain, since November 2017, and as Managing Member and Director of Frestar LLC, a grocery business, since May 2018. Additionally, Mr. Kondragunta has served as the Managing Member and Director of Fresh Produce LLC, a grocery business, since June 2018. Kishore holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications Management from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
Board of Directors
Rana Gujral, 45
Director Nominee
Mr. Gujral is the CEO and Director at Behavioral Signals since December 2019, an enterprise software company that excels at distinguishing behavioural signals in speech data with its proprietary deep learning AI technology. Mr. Gujral is majority owner of Hackient Inc., a software development company focusing on artificial intelligence and machine learning and has served as a Director of the company since July 2021. He has also served as a Director Advisor at ActiveScaler Inc., a technology travel services company, since January 2018. Mr. Gujral also served as a Board Advisor of Token Inc. from May 2018 to March 2021, and Shopin Inc. from January 2018 to August 2019. Mr. Gujral was also a board director of Lowell Association for the Blind from May 2005 to August 2006. In 2014, Rana founded TiZE, an ML-based SaaS for specialty chemicals vertical and served as its President and CEO from June 2014 to December 2016. TiZE was thereafter acquired by Alchemy Cloud in 2016. Prior to TiZE, Rana led the turnaround for private-equity backed Cricut Inc. (NASDAQ: CRCT) as Executive Vice President, Officer from May 2012 to September 2014. At Cricut, Rana affected the turnaround from bankruptcy to profitability by curing Cricut’s $300 million debt, tripling the revenue, and shifting EBITDA from -$100 million to +$12 million within a short span of 2.5 years. Cricut held its IPO at $4.2 billion valuation in March 2021. Previously, Rana was Vice President at Logitech S.A. from April 2017 to August 2018 and Sr. Manager at Kronos Inc. from June 2004 to Jan 2010. In both functions he was responsible for the development of best-in-class products generating billions in revenue and contributed towards several award-winning engineering innovations. As a thought-leader in the AI/technology space, he often leads keynote sessions at industry events such as World Government Summit, VOICE Summit, The Next Web Conference, Collision, and Horasis World Economic Forum. His bylines are featured in publications such as Hacker Noon, Voicebot.ai, SpeechTechMagazine, and is a contributing columnist at TechCrunch and Forbes. He’s been recognized as an ‘AI Entrepreneur to Watch’ in Inc. Magazine, ‘Entrepreneur of the Month’ by CIO Review, awarded ‘US-China Pioneer’ by IEIE, and listed as a Top 10 Entrepreneur to follow in 2017 by Huffington Post. In 2020 he won “Contributor of the Year” in Hacker Noon’s Noonie’s Awards. Mr. Gujral attended Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (MJP) Rohilkhand University where he obtained a computer science degree in 1997. In 1999, he graduated from TACK International with a degree in marketing, and in 2001, Mr Gujral obtained his MTPO from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Finally, in 2005 Mr. Gujral obtained his MBA from University of Massachusetts.
Kyle I. Parent, 63
Director Nominee
Mr. Weiner is a seasoned hands-on financial and operations executive with demonstrated results in a variety of financial, operational and business development roles over the past 35 years, primarily in the wireless/telecom and fintech industries. As co-founder of PCSI in April 1987, he oversaw the company’s growth from zero to $150 million in revenues and a staff of 600 employees including 300 engineers. At PCSI, Warren was CFO from April 1987 to February 1992 when PCSI was sold to Cirrus Logic, Inc. and later served in additional capacities as Chief Operating Officer and VP/GM of Subscriber Products. Mr. Weiner was also CFO at Transilica Inc. from April 2001 to February 2002 until it was sold to MircoTune Inc., and was CFO at Paratek Microwave Inc. from July 2003 to April 2012 until it was sold to Research In Motion Ltd. Additionally, Mr. Warren was CFO at Dynamics Inc. from August 2015 to February 2021. Since February 2021, Mr. Weiner has served as the COO and CFO of Ethernom, Inc., a technology company. Over the course of his career, he has raised over $170 million in private equity and $45 million in debt facilities, and managed five separate M&A exit sales of private companies to publicly traded companies. His business development experience spans OEM, private label, joint ventures and end users with extensive international experience in Europe, Japan, China and India. Mr. Weiner is a CPA and has both a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated summa cum laude.
Warren Weiner, 65
Director Nominee
Mr. Parent has served as a Group Vice President of Oracle Applications Labs at Oracle Corp since April 2013, where he leads an organization of more than 300 software developers, IT specialists, and product managers responsible for Sales, Marketing, and E-commerce systems for both internal and customer facing applications. Prior to joining Oracle, Mr. Parent served as CEO of Advisor.com (d/b/a www.Keirsey.com), an online provider of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter and related professional services from 2005 to 2013. He served as a Director of Keirsey.com from 2007 to 2015. He was also the founder and CEO of several venture backed pioneering SaaS companies in the early 2000’s. His first startup, Pantheon Interactive, Inc., was self-funded and founded in 1996 and sold to IXL, Inc. in 1998, prior to IXL’s successful IPO. Prior to founding Pantheon Interactive, Mr. Parent led Electronic Sales and Service at Silicon Graphics, Inc., a public Information Technology company, where he pioneered commercial use of the Internet from 1993 to 1996. He developed one of the first commercial and ecommerce enabled websites in 1993, the award winning “Silicon Surf”, and was featured as “The Webmaster” in the 1997 book “Digirati: Encounters with the Digital Elite”, by John Brockman. Mr. Parent received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981.