Prajodh Rajan

Co-founder & Group CEO

Prajodh conceptualized and started EuroKids International in 2001 and has been the driving force behind its growth from 2 pre-schools in 2001 to 1200 pre-schools currently.

He enjoys an enviable reputation in the industry, for his pioneering efforts in early childhood education in the country, besides creating a fertile ecosystem for education entrepreneurship.

He is a proud recipient of the ‘Special Recognition for Contribution to Franchising’ by Indian Franchise Association, Education Leadership Award 2016.

He has also been named as one of the ‘50 Leaders changing Indian Education’ by a leading Education Magazine.

Rajiv Pillai

Chief Finance Officer

Rajiv has close to two decades of experience in business advisory, corporate finance, planning and investor relations. Prior to joining Lighthouse Learning, he was leading the Corporate Finance & Planning function at Lupin Limited. He managed the business performance reporting and controlling for a diverse set of businesses globally. His experience includes a decade with leading consulting firm Ernst & Young, where he successfully delivered business advisory & consulting across multiple segments like Pharma, Oil & Gas, Telecom, Media, Agro-Chemicals and Retail. Rajiv is a Chartered Accountant and an alumnus of INSEAD. He has extensive experience across Strategy, M&A, performance management, strategic cost management, planning and budgeting, tax management and enterprise risk management.

Rohit Kumar

Chief Human Resources Officer

Rohit is a seasoned Human Resource leader with a diverse set of industry experiences spanning across varied sectors like FMCG, Pharma & Telecom. He has worked across geographies, in India and an international stint in UK. His last assignment was with Kellogg’s India as the CHRO where he played a pivotal role in driving organization transformation & growth.

Rohit grew up in a family of academicians & educators thus feels strongly anchored on the higher purpose of the education sector.

At Lighthouse Learning he is committed to foster a pupose driven people first culture, where employees come to work everyday wanting to give their best and make a difference.

Avinash Kumar

Chief Digital Officer

Avinash’s responsibility is to ensure that Lighthouse Learning is keeping pace with technological advancements and leveraging digital tools to enhance the learning experience across schools.

Avinash comes on board with close to 2 decades of experience in managing robust project experience in Information Technology. He has led important tech initiatives and managed multi-billion dollar products in leading IT corporations like Oracle and Infosys. He has provided tech leadership at start-ups like Snapdeal and Aavas financiers.

He is an avid marathon runner, and he profoundly believes in promoting underprivileged children to achieve their full potential.

Rahul Deshpande

CEO K12 Schools

Rahul is the CEO for Lighthouse Learning’s K12 Schools division including EuroSchool, Billabong High Schools and Centre Point Schools, which have over 32,000 students across 25 campuses. For over 5 years now, Rahul has been working to ensure that every student discovers his true potential and finds her North Star. Under his leadership, Lighthouse Learning’s schools have developed new curricula across ICSE. CBSE and CAIE; launched new technology platforms that reach all of their students, teachers and parents; doubled enrolments, expanded existing schools and opened new schools.

Rahul has studied at IIM Kolkata and Harvard University and is inspired to bring his learning from these institutions to K12 schools.

KVS Seshasai

Chief Executive Officer – PreSchools

As the CEO for the PreK Division, Seshasai is responsible for the growth and sustenance of the EuroKids and Kangaroo Kids chain of preschools and the Billabong High International franchise schools.

An Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of success in the Education Management and Retail Industries, he is a strong business development professional skilled in Strategic Planning, Execution, Operations Management, Retail, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Team Building. Seshasai is an Electronics Engineer, with an MBA from IIM Bangalore and is a Chevening Scholar from the London School of Economics.

Bijou Kurian

Board Member

A familiar face in the Indian retail industry, Bijou is the Chairman of the Retailers Association of India. He has been associated with marquee brands in the fast-moving consumer products, consumer durables and retail industry in India for over 34 years. In addition, he is also a member of the World Retail Congress since its inception. As a part of the advisory board and the Grand Jury for selection of the World Retail Award winners.

Bijou is highly credited for building powerful brands such as Titan, Fastrack, Sonata, Tanishq, and creating India’s largest exclusive brand retail chains of over 1,000 stores.

He is the Chief Mentor of the FICCI Retail Committee and is currently on the board of several listed and unlisted companies. He is also on the board of select consumer product companies where he mentors a handful of startups.

Indu Shahani

Board Member

Dr. Indu Shahani is a leading Indian educationist and the President & Chair of ISDI - School of Design and Innovation, ISDI | WPP School of Communication and ISME - School of Management and Entrepreneurship; and is the Founding Dean of ISME.

She has been recognized and awarded worldwide for her contribution to the education sector. With 40 years of experience behind her, she has many laurels in her kitty too. She was a national level lead Member of the University Grants Commission.

Former Mumbai Sherriff, she was the first Indian to be appointed Vice-Chair on the Board of Governors of the International Baccalaureate and has a successful decade long run with IB worldwide. She has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (D. Litt) degree by the University of Westminster, London, and has bagged the Women of the Decade Achievers Award by ASSOCHAM.

Ashish Kashyap

Board Member

The Founder and CEO of IndMoney, an AI-based wealth tech and advisory platform. Mr. Ashish Kashyap, a technology entrepreneur, has launched multiple businesses in Online Travel, payments and FinTech space.

He has vast experience in building consumer internet and technology businesses from scratch and scaling them. Ashish previously founded the online travel group ibibo and built properties such as Goibibo and redBus. Ashish also co-founded PayU India (previously known as ibiboPay). Recently Ashish has launched INDmoney, an AI-based SuperMoneyApp targeted at affluent Indians.

Prior to founding the "ibibo Group", Ashish was the ‘Country Head’ of ‘Google India’. His ingeniousness can be fathomed through the range of awards he has won. To name a few, 2017 Naspers Founder Award, LinkedIn Power Profile 2-17, Exhibit 100 Tech Indians, The Economic Times, Promising Entrepreneurs of India (2015) and Top 100 Powerful Digital Mavens of India 2012 & 2013.

Prajodh Rajan

Co-founder & Group CEO

Prajodh conceptualized and started EuroKids International in 2001 and has been the driving force behind its growth from 2 pre-schools in 2001 to 1200 pre-schools currently.

He enjoys an enviable reputation in the industry, for his pioneering efforts in early childhood education in the country, besides creating a fertile ecosystem for education entrepreneurship.

He is a proud recipient of the ‘Special Recognition for Contribution to Franchising’ by Indian Franchise Association, Education Leadership Award 2016.

He has also been named as one of the ‘50 Leaders changing Indian Education’ by a leading Education Magazine.

Simrun Mehta

Board Member

Simrun Mehta joined KKR in 2012 and is a member of the Private Equity team. Previously, Ms. Mehta was a part of KKR’s Credit and Capital Markets teams and worked on originating and executing credit financings as well as business strategy and capital raising initiatives for the platform.

Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Mehta worked with Nomura’s fixed income institutional sales desk and the commodities division of Lehman Brothers. Ms. Mehta holds a B.A. with Honors in Mathematics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi

Suveer Sinha

Board Member

Suveer joined KKR in 2022 and leads the value creation efforts for KKR India’s private equity portfolio companies cutting across industries, including education, healthcare, personal care and industrials.

Prior to joining KKR, Suveer was a partner with McKinsey & Company and drove several large transformations across industries in his fifteen-year tenure. He also worked with General Electric and drove business excellence as a Six Sigma Black Belt.

He earned an M.B.A degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode, where he received a gold medallist distinction.

Andy Gray

Education Advisory Board

Andy Gray is a Scots teacher who began his teaching career at Shrewsbury, one of UK’s most prestigious Public Schools. Andy was a founding member of NASS (National Association of Independent & Non-Maintained Special Schools) and was elected Chairman, a position which brought him into prominence as the principal representative of the independent SEN school sector to the UK government.

He joined EuroSchool in 2005 as Head, Governing Council, with a remit to support the establishment of a chain of senior secondary schools which involved managing a range of functions. Since 2022 he has continued his connection with Lighthouse in an Advisory Consultant capacity.

Andy was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 1993, and the Royal Asiatic Society (FRAS) in 2004. He has been a member of the India International Centre, New Delhi since 2000.

Manit Jain

Education Advisory Board

An alumnus of Delhi University and Harvard Graduate School of Education, Manit Jain is the co-founder and director of the Heritage Xperiential Learning Schools in Delhi NCR. A committed proponent of experiential learning pedagogies, Manit is the driving force behind the development of HXLS into the country’s #1 co-ed day school. Manit championed the cause of experiential learning, launching it successfully in the mainstream environment. In less than two decades, he has nurtured HXLS into a model K-12 institution internationally respected for its innovative experiential learning pedagogies and excellent teacher welfare and development programmes. He is driven by the cause of real and humane education and continues to advocate and address the need for re-imagining schools.

Widely acknowledged and regarded for his work in the experiential learning arena, Manit understands the dire need for reforms in teacher education in the country and the inadequacy of the system to prepare effective teachers. He continues to found new ventures like ‘I am a Teacher’, a Post-graduate diploma in learning and teaching that is changing the paradigm of Teaching in India, an initiative that is developing a model for practice-based teacher education.

Dr. Natasha Mehta

Education Advisory Board

Dr Natasha Mehta comes with an experience of 3 decades in the pre-K12 education sector. Her experience ranges across the spectrum of the learning ecosystem, as a science educator, Head of schools, and curriculum and instructional leader. She has authored about 52 books in Science for the national and international Boards with Pearson and Marshall Cavendish Education, Singapore.

Her immediate past experience was as the Head of Academics for India, at the Aga Khan Education Service where as a member of the senior leadership team, she provided programmatic and instructional leadership to improve the quality of teaching and learning to raise the profile and performance of the network schools.

She has a Masters in Zoology and PhD in Education Psychology. She believes that this is a great time to be in school education, with an abundance of new thoughts, the freedom to innovate and education truly opening its borders.

Dr. Roy

Education Advisory Board

Dr. Roy van den Brink-Budgen is a Critical Thinking expert. He’s worked with thousands of students and teachers (from primary to postgraduate) across countries (including France, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, and the UK) for many years and written many books and articles on the subject.

He is interested in the teaching of critical thinking as a discrete subject and one that is infused throughout the curriculum. He has developed a wide range of materials for school, college and university students as well as businesses. This work has included developing assessments of and producing online and other courses in critical thinking. He has also provided advice on critical thinking to an international company which has developed AI self-coaching products, and is a consultant to a company that provides guidance for people taking various assessments.