VIKRAM CHAUHAN – Chairman and Co-Founder

Vik has over 30 years of technical, management and IT experience, with more than 25 years of experience advising the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) along with other Federal agencies. His functional expertise spans over the Defense & Security, Telecom, and Healthcare industries. He has advised a number of foreign governments – including those of India, the U.K., Columbia and the Philippines – on e-Governance and Public Security. Vik has extensive business and technology management experience with proven P&L track record. Additionally, he has served in a senior role in several companies – including Deloitte, BearingPoint, CSC, and Northrop Grumman – where he helped build new business in Systems Engineering, IT, software, telecommunications, and management consulting.

BRIGADIER RAHUL BHONSLE (RETD.) – Principal Coordinator India Operations

Rahul is an Indian army veteran with over three decades of operational counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism experience in India and abroad. He is presently Director of Security-Risks.com, a South Asian security risk and knowledge management consultancy. He specializes in conflict trends in South Asia. He writes regularly for national and international media and advises a number of government and non-government agencies and private sector companies. Brig Rahul Bhonsle has worked on building India’s defence capability “Securing India: Assessment of Defence and Security Capabilities,” [2009] which outlines defence modernisation and indigenisation strategies for India.

VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF VENKAT BHARATHAN (RETD.) –Strategic Counselor

Vice Admiral “Barry” BHARATHAN retired as the Vice Chief of Naval Staff after four decades of service in November 2006. He served as India’s Naval Attaché in Washington DC from 1992 to 1995 and worked towards enhancing Indo-USA defence cooperation. He is a distinguished Fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation and is a regular contributor to military journals and magazines on strategic military issues across the spectrum of Strategic Planning, Military readiness, Maritime security doctrines, Project/Personnel management, Transfer of technology, and India US relations.

COLONEL WOOLF P. GROSS (RETD.) – Strategic Counselor

Woolf Gross is a retired US Army officer who spent 18 years of his 28-year military career as a Foreign Area Officer focusing on the Indian Subcontinent. He was posted as an Assistant Army Attache in the American Embassy New Delhi before, during and after the 22-day India/Pakistan War in 1965. In relevant later assignments, he served as the Indian Ocean Intelligence Officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency, as the staff officer for South Asia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as the Politico-Military Advisor to three successive Assistant Secretaries of State for Near East & South Asia. Subsequent to his retirement from the Army, he served as Corporate Director, International Programs in the Northrop Grumman Corp with a primary focus on the Near East & South Asia.

DR. SURABHI GARG – VP Finance and Operations

Surabhi has over fifteen years of business management and analysis experience. She is part of the leadership that founded and continues to serve the US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC). She is responsible for the AUSIB’s member development for the Small and Medium Enterprises. She is also the key liaison to the Indian American business community.  Surabhi has nearly 10 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, clinical research, and analysis of biotechnology markets. She is the author of 20 peer-reviewed articles and 13 abstracts presented at national and international conferences. Her areas of expertise include immunology, molecular biology, molecular epidemiology, microbiology, clinical diagnostics, and human physiology.

SONIA PINTO – US-India Operations Executive

Sonia’s professional experience focuses on the Indian defense sector and broadly security and development in South Asia, the Asia-Pacific, and Middle East. She is an analyst at C4ADS, where she covers the Indian defense sector and South Asian security. Prior to C4ADS, she worked for the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, where her research focused on U.S.-India security relations. Sonia also worked in Afghanistan for Altai Consulting where she conducted monitoring and evaluation of USAID stabilization and other development projects. She began her career in foreign relations at the Asia Society in New York.