Governing Body

Anand Sudarshan is the Founder & Director of Sylvant Advisors Private Limited, which provides strategic advisory services in the education sector to Indian & global institutions, large enterprises, and investors. Additionally, Sylvant incubates, invests in, and advises start-up & early-stage companies. He is an independent non-executive director of NIIT Limited, the pioneer in education & training. He also serves on several other private company boards and government committees on policy advisory in education.

Till June 2012, he was Vice-Chairman & Managing Director of Manipal Global Education (MaGE), with whom he had a distinguished career from May 2006. A pioneering global education entity headquartered out of Bangalore, MaGE is the largest higher education & related services entity out of India. Anand led the team that built MaGE through expanding its global footprint to 6 campuses, in addition to propelling it as the definitive leader in technology-driven higher education out of India. Notable among the several milestones & achievements MaGE had during Anand’s tenure, are new campuses in Malaysia, Dubai, Antigua and India; an award-winning technology learning platform, EduNxt; a pioneering banking academy, among the largest of its kind in the world; and expansion of MaGE’s multi-country footprint through organic & inorganic strategies. Post moving out of a full-time position, Anand served as an independent non-executive director of MaGE from July 2012 till September 2013.

Anand Sudarshan has been a recognised leader in the education sector since the last 9+ years. He is an active member of FICCI’s (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) national committees on Higher Education & School Education, and is the Chair of its national committee on Start up’s & Innovation. He is a trustee of Head Held High Foundation, which is doing seminal work in transforming rural poverty through empowering youth with low or no education through a dynamic combination of focus on training such youth, and creation of jobs through accelerating the rural economy.

Prior to his stint at MaGE, Anand was an entrepreneur & a senior executive at companies in the Information Technology industry, co-founding the Microland Group, and later driving Adea Solutions International.

Anand holds a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, and a PGDM (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, India. Anand, his wife Padmashri & their son Dhruva live in Bangalore, India.