About Encora

Anand Birje

CEO

Anand Birje is the CEO of Encora, with overall responsibility for the company‘s growth, client service, and day-to-day operations.

Prior to this role, Birje was the President of Digital Business Services at HCL Technologies, where he drove the global growth of Digital Consulting, Applications & Platforms, and Data & Analytics, including strategy, practices, and service delivery. He also led HCL's global corporate development, strategic partnerships, Next-Gen, ITO, and digital services.   

Birje was instrumental in multiple HCL acquisitions and investments across the US and Europe, building in-house capabilities and establishing a strong foundation for Digital Consulting and UX Design Practices. He continues to drive HCL's engagement in Silicon Valley, forging partnerships within the ecosystem of technology firms, startups, and venture funds. He serves on the governance team for HCL's investment in Morado Venture Fund, an early-stage investor in enterprise technology startups.  

As a founding member of HCL’s Infrastructure Services Division in North America, Birje helped galvanize the business to $2.5 billion+ within a decade. Before joining HCL Technologies, he was a founding member of Atesto Technologies, a SaaS tools provider of application monitoring tools acquired by Infovista, and held various positions in Emerson Electric Company's MES and Process Control divisions.  

Birje’s passion for technology and business is a driving force in his work. He collaborates with Columbia Business School and UC Irvine to develop industry-level strategies around digital execution, transformation, and connected ecosystems. He is a regular attendee at the World Economic Forum in Davos and is a Strategy Officer with its Industry 4.0 and digital workforce groups.    

Birje lives in Silicon Valley and is involved in philanthropic outreach that includes music and art education for children and exploring the impact of technology on the future of society.  

Vikas Tiku

Group CFO

Vikas leads Encora's Group Finance, global operations, risk management, and strategic transactions. He brings over 30 years of experience with large, global businesses in the US, Asia Pacific, and Africa to the role.

Prior to joining Encora, Vikas served as Representative Director, Head of Transformation, Chief Financial, and Strategy Officer for Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Holdings Inc., successfully leading post-merger integration and transformation, modernizing operations in manufacturing, logistics, route-to-market, financial and HR systems. He was voted as the ‘Best CFO in Japan’ (Food & Beverage sector) by Investor Weekly publication in 2018.

Vikas started his professional career with The Pillsbury Company. He subsequently served as COO and CFO for Source Precision Medicine, a start-up medical technologies company based in Colorado. He joined The Coca-Cola Company in 2005 as M&A Lead for Asia Pacific before going on to serve as CFO Africa (2006-2008), CFO Japan (2009-2014), and CFO Asia Pacific (2015-2016).

Vikas has a Bachelor of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering degree from Punjab University in India and an MBA from the University of Minnesota. He attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in Spring 2019.

Rohit Nichani

President, Product Engineering & Chief Commercial Officer

Rohit Nichani has been a key member of Encora’s leadership team since its inception. He has contributed to the significant growth of the OPD business at the company.

Rohit is responsible for managing several key client relationships and programs. He plays a critical role in helping shape the company's core focus areas, go-to-market strategy, innovation & product management, and client engagement. Rohit is the creator of our Test Automation products, AutomationNG and ManageNG. Additionally, he is responsible for the eLearning offerings in the US, with primary focus on Platforms and Managed Learning.

He brings with him over 20 years of solid IT experience, which includes delivery management, executive relationship management, technology thought-leadership, sales, and business development. Rohit is considered an authority in the areas of software product design, architecture definition, and engagement process definition.

Melissa Ribeiro

Chief People Officer

Melissa Ribeiro has 20+ years of progressive HR leadership experience across a variety of industries and organizations, including broad international roles and significant depth in Latin America.

In her role as Encora’s Chief People Officer, Melissa provides strategic leadership to the People & Culture and Talent Acquisition functions to support the business through a period of progressive transformation.

Before Encora, Melissa was Chief People Officer at Actian Corporation, an onsite and cloud data management organization. Prior to Actian, Melissa was the Global Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Deluxe Entertainment, a private equity-owned entertainment firm. Earlier in her career, Melissa served as the Global Vice President of Human Resources at Opera Mediaworks. Before Opera, Melissa was the Head of HR for Yahoo U.S. and Latin America.

Melissa holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northern Parana University in Brazil and a Master of Science in Management from Parana State University. She also has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The Georgia School of Professional Psychology.

Mario Chaves

President, Americas, CSA Division

With over 40 years of software industry experience, Mario Chaves has led Avantica's strategy and direction since its founding in the mid ‘90s. His constant pursuit of innovation has led Avantica to become an award-winning nearshore software services company. He was honored for Innovation in the ’Entrepreneur of the Year’ Awards in 2009 and 2018 by a major Costa Rican newspaper for leading the company to the development of groundbreaking applications using cutting edge technologies.

Before founding Avantica, Mario was Chief Technology Officer at Babcock & Brown, a leading investment banking firm, where he led a worldwide team and was responsible for all technology strategies and implementation. Before Babcock & Brown, Mario was Director of Product Development for Intuit, where he led the development of new products for the Quicken product line and managed the development of Intuit’s International Products. Prior to that, at Software Publishing Corporation, Mario created Harvard Graphics, which redefined the presentation graphics software category and was largely responsible for the company’s growth from $20M to over $100M in revenues.

Mario earned an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Davis.

Augusto Cavalcanti

President, Americas, Brazil Division

Mr. Cavalcanti is an accomplished business executive and technology leader with 30+ years of experience. Mr. Cavalcanti has been the co-founder of four successful companies. Underscoring the success of all of Mr. Cavalcanti’s ventures has been the development of innovative technologies, defining strategies for sustainable growth and solid execution. His most recent company, Daitan, was acquired by Encora in 2021. 


Mr. Cavalcanti is the President, Americas for Encora’s Brazil Division where he provides the visionary guidance for the company’s future and drives management’s execution of Daitan’s technology, financial, operational, and market objectives. Across the organization, his leadership instils a deep loyalty to a culture based on Principles & Values that build trust, industry-recognized expertise, quality, and reliability. Since 2004, Mr. Cavalcanti has scaled the Brazil-based business into a profitable and thriving global organization that serves leading global customers. 

Joshua Kanter

Chief Marketing Officer

Joshua Kanter is an accomplished marketing leader with extensive experience in leading the marketing and customer experience functions across B2B and B2C businesses, including all aspects of the company's customer engagement strategy, direct marketing strategy, digital consumer engagement, loyalty marketing, marketing technology, customer analytics, and brand creative strategy.

In his role as Chief Marketing Officer at Encora, Joshua oversees the company’s marketing, experience design, and brand communications across all service lines and geographies. Prior to joining Encora, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer at PetSmart and International Cruise & Excursions and Senior Vice President of Marketing Strategy at Caesars Entertainment. Earlier in his career, Joshua was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he focused on the loyalty strategy and customer lifecycle management practices in several service industries, including hospitality, financial services, telecommunications, and retail.

Joshua holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Harvard University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Asaf Kharal

EVP & General Counsel

Asaf Kharal is an accomplished attorney, with extensive experience working with high-growth companies including Google, Tesla, Arista, Zscaler and Nutanix over his illustrious career. Asaf specializes in helping technology companies to scale and succeed through corporate governance, international expansion, commercial transactions, licensing, intellectual property development and protection, strategic transactions and compliance.

Prior to joining Encora, Asaf served as Vice President & General Counsel of Prysm, a next-gen display and visual collaboration solutions provider based in San Jose, California. Prior to this, he served as Senior Counsel at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, where he provided insights to clients on corporate governance, strategic transactions, licensing, protecting and transferring of intellectual property, negotiating joint ventures and financial transactions.

Asaf holds a Juris Doctorate in Law and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the State Bar of California.

Deepak Bhandari

Head of Corporate Development

Deepak Bhandari is a strategy and corporate development professional with extensive experience in all aspects of the finance function, including investment banking & strategic capital advisory, investment funds structuring, and mergers & acquisitions. Within the tech sector, his focus has been on building relationships with founders of high-growth companies across several global markets and providing strategic advice in their quest to seek successful exits through mergers and acquisitions.   

 In his role as Head of Corporate Development at Encora, Deepak is responsible for providing strategic leadership to drive the company’s inorganic growth strategy to expand the company’s presence in Latin America and India, and enter new markets such as Central and Eastern Europe.   

Before joining Encora, Deepak was the founder and owner of Marylebone Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd., an M&A advisory firm focused on tech services. Deepak has also worked with global Investment Banks and MNCs across Asia and Europe, and across the entire spectrum of Strategy, Finance, and Corporate Development functions in several industries including Telecommunications, Natural Resources, and Technology Services.   

 Deepak is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary from India and holds an MBA from the London Business School.  

Lalit Wadhwa

EVP & Chief Technology Officer

Lalit Wadhwa is an accomplished engineer with over 25 years of wide-ranging experience in modern and emerging technologies. He is a recognized thought leader and frequent speaker on a wide range of important technology topics, including platform modernization, cloud adoption, data science, AI and predictive analytics & digital services. 

As Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Lalit will strengthen the use of advanced technical tools and methods in Encora’s client services while raising awareness of the company’s thought leadership through external speaking engagements. In collaboration with the leadership team, he will create and co-lead Encora’s Technology Practices Areas, in support of the company’s sustained growth. Previously, Lalit was Vice President of Advanced Analytics at Wesco Distribution, where he was responsible for building the company’s data, advanced analytics & digital capabilities across supply chain & operations.

Lalit holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree with Honors from the Delhi College of Engineering, specializations from the University of California and Johns Hopkins University, and over 20 technology related certifications.

In his free time, his passions include reading & discussing quantum physics, cosmology, quantum computing, and following the sport of cricket

Nick Sharma 

President, Digital Applications & Platforms

A creative, seasoned business leader with exceptional technical, commercial and motivational skills focused on innovative change to deliver results, drive growth and profitability. He has extensive experience delivering creative information technology solutions to both government and commercial HealthTech, FinTech& Insurtech and EntrepriseTech) sectors. Nick has been a successful CEO in multiple companies and recently was the CEO of Excellarate which was acquired by Encora. Nick has been successful in managing acquisitions and has a strong background working with P/E firms and has been on several Boards.

Nick is the President of the newly formed Digital Application and Platform business Unit and will be responsible for DAPs financial, operational and market objectives. Nick will continue his unwavering focus on people and clients which has led to tremendous growth for excellarate over the past two years and has set up a base platform for future growth. He will continue to provide support to the leadership in shaping the strategies and driving growth

Nick has a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering and Masters in Industrial Engineering from University of Texas and completed Certificate of Special Study in Business Management from Harvard University. He is married with two children and lives in the New England area.

Roberto Martinez

President, Mexico

Roberto Martinez has been working in the software nearshoring industry for 20+ years. As a senior executive, he is familiar with the needs, obstacles, and challenges faced by small startups as well as big teams.

As a leader at Encora, Roberto has helped the company acquire important clients such as OpenTable, Siemens, ZED Connect (Cummins), MDLive, Choice Hotels, Points International and others. His focus has been on helping companies to innovate, and not just perform the required task. This has helped his clients improve their output and increase their revenue.

Roberto gives great importance to the empowerment of talent and fostering of a great work culture; this has led to the company being listed as a Great Place to Work in Mexico for the last 8 years.

Roberto has a software engineering background from the prestigious Tecnologico de Monterrey and strategic direction from IPADE.

Luis Carlos Chaves

EVP & COO, CSA Division

Luis Carlos Chaves oversees Avantica's daily operations and ensures they are in alignment with the company's strategic development plans. His vision and eye for detail have seen Avantica through impressive organic growth rates of 30-40% annually since the company's launch in 1993. Under Luis Carlos, the company grew from a small team of 5 people to almost 1000 employees throughout Latin America.

Prior to co-founding Avantica Technologies, Luis Carlos was the CTO/CIO of Banco Cuscatlán, a leading commercial bank in Costa Rica, where he was responsible for all software development, IT operations, and technology strategy for over 12 years.

Luis Carlos has over 34 years of experience in software development and systems architecture. He has also accumulated a wealth of expertise in secure financial systems, network architecture, database design, activity-based cost systems, and web development.

Luis Carlos earned a BS degree in Computer Science from Universidad de Costa Rica and an MBA in Banking and Finance from National University, San Diego.

Aditya Srivastava

President, South East Asia

Aditya Srivastava has an extensive track record of creating and establishing successful technology services companies in the Asia-Pacific region. He brings in strong experience of delivering software & technology services in various domains; ranging from Logistics & Transportation to Financial Services and Manufacturing.

Under his leadership, Encora has grown steadily year on year and added new locations and lines of business in APAC. Prior to Encora, Aditya served as Associate Director at Apar Infotech (Ness Global).

Aditya is an engineering graduate from the University of Nagpur and has a Post Graduate Diploma from Henley Management College (UK).

Ian McMaster

Senior Vice President, Partnerships & Alliances

As Encora’s SVP, Head of Partnerships & Ecosystem Alliances, Ian McMaster develops and executes the Partnerships & Alliances strategy, including identifying and evaluating potential partners, and successful implementation and management of partnerships. He collaborates with cross-functional teams across Encora to create programs and solutions that drive business growth through alliances. 

Ian brings over 25 years of experience in managing diverse teams focused on software development, consulting services, software sales, and partner alliances.  

Prior to joining Encora, Ian served as the Vice President, Global Head of AI & Analytics Alliances at Cognizant and Business Unit Executive at IBM where he was responsible for the growth of new accounts across geographies. He started his career at Microsoft where he held several positions including Product Development.  

Ian’s outstanding track record includes several awards such as the IBM Cloud Lead2Succeed Award, IBM VP Award for Creativity & Strategic Thinking, Microsoft Gold Star Stock Award, Microsoft Outstanding Worldwide Contributor - Top 100, and more. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.   

Krish Anand

EVP & CIO

Krish Anand is the Executive Vice President and & Chief Information Officer at Encora. Passionate about digital transformation, Krish leads the global Technology Transformation, IT and Security initiatives and oversees the implementation of wide-ranging business priorities, including enterprise-wide systems and processes. In addition, he is responsible for technology security, compliance and related enterprise risk management.

Krish has extensive experience working with high-growth technology companies, especially in the Banking and Financial Services vertical. He is highly experienced in business automation solutions. Krish was part of the founding team of Indecomm and served as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.

Krish is an Electrical Engineer by training and has completed the Strategic Management program at IIM (Ahmedabad) and the Leadership Management Program at Wharton. He is also an active member of ISACA and an avid keelboat sailor.

Anesh Korla

EVP & COO, India

Anesh Korla has more than 20 years’ experience in the Information Technology (IT) industry. His background includes an in-depth appreciation of global delivery, large-scale agile transformation to drive substantial benefits, as well as expertise in managing executive client relationships and building high performing teams.

In his present role at Encora, Anesh’s primary function consists of strengthening the Next-Gen solutions around Mobility, Cloud, UI/UX, Analytics, Test Automation and Core Product Re-engineering Services, and enabling the company’s clients to optimally achieve their goals.

Prior to joining Encora, Anesh served as a Managing Director at Accenture where he was responsible for managing the P&L and delivery of programs for large clients. Before that, he was a senior leader at iGATE and GE Healthcare, driving Business Intelligence units and the Center of Excellence.

Anesh has earned his BE from Shah & Anchor Kutchi Engineering College, Mumbai.

Alvaro Lang

EVP, Sales Operations, CSA Division

With more than 20 years of experience in leading organizations, Alvaro Lang has proven his expertise in business strategy, business development, start-ups growth and consolidation of operations in Latin America.

Currently, Alvaro is in charge of generating business for Encora, by working in coordination with Sales, Marketing and the rest of the organization. He joined the company in 2017 and since then, has generated a historic increase in sales with his team of specialized software engineering services for Latin America and the United States.

Previously, Alvaro stood out as the first Microsoft employee in Central America. As part of his efforts, he grew the operation and managed to open offices in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador and Honduras.

He was also responsible for opening offices in Central America for Sun Microsystems and Unisys, one of the world's largest technology companies in the early 1990s. In addition, he served as general manager of the companies Teksol and Fusionet Corporation.

Alvaro has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Systems Engineering, as well as in Electromechanical Engineering (Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica).

Ram Ganesan

EVP, Product Engineering & Head of Digital Experience

Ram Ganesan is the quintessential intrapreneur. He is constantly on the lookout to bring new concepts and ideas to life.

At Encora, Ram heads the Digital Commerce and Learning teams, delivering exceptional Digital Experiences to varied audiences in the B2C and B2B space.

Previously, Ram was the founder of Sooryen Technologies, which joined Encora in 2018. Under his leadership, the company grew rapidly to make the Inc 500 list in 2016 and the Deloitte Fast 500 list in 2018. Earlier in his career, Ram has held various progressive technology leadership roles at 1800Flowers, Metlife, IBM, Citicorp, and Fujitsu.

Ram holds an MBA from Baruch College, New York and a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bombay.

Suzanne McKenna

Global Vice President, People & Culture

SUZANNE MCKENNA is a Global Human Resources Executive, with a 25+-year track record in Strategy development, HR Business Development, Employee Relations, Program & Project Management. Suzanne has worked in diverse environments from US Multinationals to start-ups.

Previously as Country HR Manager for Hewlett Packard, Danaher, Barclays Bank & Clear Channel International, Suzanne drove high value change projects, led countless mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, organizational restructuring & downsizing programs. She takes a vision and makes it reality through sound strategic development and has won C.I.P.D awards in the areas of employee engagement and change management. Suzanne is an active Fellow of the European Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and Society of Human Resources Management, USA.

Suzanne holds a first-class honors B.A. in Strategic HRM from National College of Ireland and a Dip. European Employment Law, from University College Dublin. Suzanne has relocated with her family from Ireland to the US.

Clifford Vazquez

Chief Information Security Officer

As Encora’s Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Clifford Vazquez provides technical leadership for all information security platforms. He brings over 30 years of extensive experience in cybersecurity, consulting, and incident response, spanning multiple verticals such as HealthTech, FinTech & InsurTech, Telecom, Media, and GovTech. 

At Encora, Clifford is responsible for promoting a strong information security culture across all business units. Additionally, he leads the development of an enterprise information security and IT risk management program.  

Prior to this, Clifford served as the Cybersecurity Services and Global CISO in OSI Global Digital and in Capgemini from 2013 onwards. He also held the position of IT Telecom & Security Sector Chief & Infrastructure Liaison Officer (ILO) at InfraGard, an organization he is still active in that is run by the FBI to perform outreach to critical sectors about cybersecurity and terrorism threats. He is a part of the Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force. In 2017, he was conferred with the Sector Chief of the Year award by the FBI. 

Clifford holds cybersecurity and information security certificates from highly recognized institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Southern California. Clifford has graduated from the DEA & FBI Citizens’ Academy Program and the FBI Leadership Academy.