Till recently, Ashu was a General Manager with Microsoft’s On-Line Services business where he was responsible for Strategy and Business Management for the Digital Advertising P&L. Ashu was part of the team that established the Digital Advertising Busines Group at MSFT in 2006 and was directly responsble for developing its business, setting up the organization and building out the Yield Management function. Prior to this, Ashu was a General Manager within the WW Sales and Marketing Group at Microsoft (for the core software business) where he led the WW Field Readiness function (across all products, customer segments and regions). Ashu was given the charter to build out the WW Field Readiness (MS speak for Field Marketing) function at MS in 2003 in response to the business need to accelerate growth, and he grew it to a 500 person strong marketing function with over $ 125 M in spend that played an integral role in the recent Office and Vista launches.
Prior to Microsoft, Ashu worked with Cadence Design Systems in San Jose where he led strategic planning for the company, and also held other senior sales and marketing roles. At Cadence, Ashu led a cross functional effort to develop a growth plan for the company post the recession and led the effort to transform its sales and marketing efforts by focusing on business value and on five core platforms (vs. over 100 individual products). Before Cadence, Ashu worked with McKinsey & Company in India and Palo Alto. At McKinsey, Ashu worked with both start-ups and market leaders in Digital Media, Technology, Healthcare and Consumer Services on a range of growth related issues and led business/practice development efforts for McKinsey. As part McKinsey's business incubation efforts, Ashu led efforts to build out several start-up businesses including a local search engine, an ISP and youth focussed portal. Also, while at McKinsey, Ashu co-led a joint McKinsey- NASSCOM effort to develop an India IT strategy that culminated in the first McKinsey- NASSCOM report on India’s IT sector. Ashu started his career with Unilever India where he managed sales and manufacturing operations in India.
Ashu is an active Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs Association (TiE) and is the Co-Chair for the Content team for TiEcon2008, the largest global convention for entrepreneurs. Ashu is also the Vice President for Marketing for PanIIT and in that capacity led the Public Relations efforts for the 2007 Pan IIT Conference. In addition, he is an active investor and a member of the Indian Angel Network, the leading network of angel investors in India. Ashu has recently invested in Vienova (an on-line tutoring site), Videa (a start-up focussed investment bank) and Tarangan Developers (a Nagpur focussed real estate developer). In addition, Ashu is an active real estate investor in India - his current investments include residential properties in Gurgaon, Noida, Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai
Ashu has a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, where he received the Citibank Leadership award and the President's Gold Medal. Ashu graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology at New Delhi in 1992 where he was President of the Student Affairs Council.
Ashu and his wife Pooja currently live in San Francisco where they enjoy hiking and running by the bay.