Arjun Sarode is a seasoned strategist with extensive experience in corporate, fundraising, and growth strategies for early-stage companies. He has held influential roles at consulting and media companies such as Appcoach, Dentsu, and Affinity, where he consulted with clients including Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Comcast, Shaadi.com, and Zillow to develop their go-to-market strategy.

As the COO & Resident Mentor at IMAGE COE by STPI, Arjun helps startups grow by making smart business decisions fast. He is an open-minded, hands-on, and high-energy person who thrives on the opportunity to make an impact and build something from the ground up.

Arjun has deep expertise in customer development, growth, fundraising, marketing, and early product management. He is an active startup ecosystem participant and has spearheaded India’s first digital innovation conference Indiajoy, which had over 100 speakers from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc., and 3500+ attendees from 19 countries.

Arjun also advises ecosystem enablers such as TVAGA for community development. His specialties include go-to-market strategy, digital marketing strategy, business case development, fundraising consulting, valuation, competitive analysis, industry research, repositioning, financial modeling, business plan development, contingency planning, and growth strategy (B2B, B2C, D2C, SaaS).

Arjun has a MBA with Merit List honours from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and holds an M. Tech (Distinction) qualification from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya. He is also an accomplished writer, with articles, tweets, and Quora answers published on popular media platforms such as Hindustan Times and Transfin.

Navneet Prakash Sharma, Administrative Officer, STPI-HQ has 21+ years of vast experience of working in administration. He has worked in different branches of Administration during the above tenure which, inter-alia, include Establishment, Disciplinary matters [CCS (Conduct) Rules & CCS (CCA) Rules], Legal matters, Rajbhasha, Policy implementation etc. Besides, he has also dealt the matters pertaining to Foreign Trade Policy, SEZ Act/Rules, FEMA, Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992.
He holds bachelor’s degree in science and law and master’s degree in Business Administration.