Say hello to our Leaders

Anji Maram is the founder and chief executive officer of CriticalRiver, a leading technology consulting company. He is responsible for all aspects of the company’s growth strategy, team, operations and initiatives across CR’s global network of nine offices. He co-founded CriticalRiver in 2014 with the vision to capture digital-disruption opportunities, unlock true value across technology and services, improve operational efficiency and provide customers with maximum satisfaction.

Prior to starting CriticalRiver, Anji worked extensively in technology-based companies, holding key leadership positions in many firms, including Oracle. Anji was part of the original team that created the Oracle Software that millions use even today. Between 2006 and 2009, Anji worked as the Oracle applications solution architect at Sun Microsystems. He was also the managing partner and vice-president (technologies, architecture, delivery & off-shore operations) at Selectiva Systems Inc from 2008 to 2011.

Based in San Ramon, USA, Anji is an alumnus of UCLA, University of Louisiana, and BITS Pilani, India.
Anji is committed to giving back to society and to the people he grew up with. He is keen on making a difference for the underprivileged. As part of his commitment, Anji founded the Medville Corporation in 2015 which aimed at reaching out to international patients seeking medical treatment in the US. Anji often describes himself as the chief empathy officer, a quality he prizes in every member of the growing CriticalRiver family.

Chandrasekhar Chandragiri, CFO and co-founder of CriticalRiver, has over 20 years of experience in Technology consulting services and technology business development. He has been offering his technical expertise in creating long-term core applications and has been instrumental in driving the company’s growth to over $50 million annually.

As the CFO, he has played a key role in establishing the company’s strong presence and lasting customer relationships in the Oracle HCM field. He founded CriticalRiver with the commitment of developing and implementing strategies and technologies that provide business value and enhance customer satisfaction.

Chandra has an extensive experience across multiple organizations. Prior to joining CriticalRiver, Chandra was the Principal at IHireRite Inc. He has also worked as the Principal Applications Engineer for Oracle Corporation. Chandra has also worked as an intern in IBM Global Services and Sun Microsystems.

The alumnus of BITS, Pilani, and University of Louisiana at Lafayette, he currently resides and works out of San Ramon, USA. Chandra is a life-long learner and has a long-term commitment to achieving impact in the technology world. He is a Business Graduate from UCLA Anderson School of Business.

Ajay is the Group senior vice-president of services at CriticalRiver. In his role, Ajay is responsible for driving customer success, revenue growth, sales solutions and support, services delivery, account management, and global alliances. Ajay’s teams lead services in Salesforce, Oracle, Process Automation/Integration, Data Analytics, Software Engineering, Hardware Engineering, and Business Process Outsourcing.

Prior to joining CriticalRiver, Ajay has held top positions in Infor, Thomson Reuters, eVerge Group, and PwC. He has even worked in public sector unit Steel Authority of India for five years. Ajay has consistently been a top performer. He focuses on building the company’s organization and structure to drive organic growth and deliver value to customers. He attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, from where he earned his BTech and MBA degrees. Ajay is currently based out of Dallas, Texas.

Arundhati Ashoka is CriticalRiver’s global human resource officer, responsible for overseeing the company’s global people operations as well as recruiting, fostering, and retaining the talent needed to achieve its business goals. She establishes the high-performance workplace culture required for continued international expansion.

Arundhati is a seasoned HR professional with an outstanding background in people and customer relations. Prior to joining CriticalRiver, she held responsible positions in various MNCs. She has been a champion of diversity and inclusion efforts throughout her career.

The alumnus of Bangalore University currently resides and works out of Austin, TX.

Chandra is the senior vice-president of digital transformation strategy at CriticalRiver with multicultural (USA, India, Germany, Brazil and UK) global experience. He leads and delivers strategy from the ground up, building Cloud, AI, DevSecOps/MLOps enabled IT operations & modernization accelerators. He is an experienced digital and cloud leader with over 23 years of experience in building credible business and tech vendor partnerships. Chandra has worked with a range of clients and wider business practices as they embarked on the journey to transform their enterprises.

Prior to joining CriticalRiver in 2021, Chandra served as the global vice-president (information technology) of $350M P&L business at Unisys. He has also worked as Managing Director at Charles Schwab and in various leadership roles at Dell Perot Systems, Thomson Reuters, Vistra Energy, and Cap Gemini.

Chandra has been an official member and author of the Forbes Technology Council since 2019. He has also been mentoring and coaching entrepreneurs and startups at the DEC (Dallas Entrepreneur Center) and North Texas Angels Network board member, driving early adoption of emerging trends such as Web3 – NFT, DAO, Blockchain, and AI/ML to solve business challenges. He is the co-founder and chief architect of Halen, a one-stop shop platform for rideshare, grocery, restaurant, retail delivery, flight booking, and vacation rentals.

Marquis Who’s Who in America top executive and National Diversity Council top 100 diverse leader recognition. The BITS (Pilani) alumnus lives and works out of Dallas, Texas (Home of Cowboys football).

David brings 20 years of expertise in growing large organizations and developing global infrastructure to scale. Additionally, he has considerable experience enabling sales and delivery through strategic leadership. David has worked with clients from the US, APAC, and LATAM across multiple industry verticals.

Enay is the partner and managing director at CriticalRiver Inc, heading the India and APAC region operations. In his role, Enay is responsible for leading the business across the regions, designing and implementing business strategies, plans and procedures and setting comprehensive goals for performance and growth. He has over 20 years of experience in techno-managerial business development positions and has been delivering innovative software solutions at leading Tier 2 organizations and startups.

He joined CriticalRiver in 2017 as the vice-president of operations. Earlier, Enay had founded a company Opent IT Services, in which he served as the managing director. Prior to that, Enay worked in companies like Selectiva Software Solutions, Analytixds, Aztec Software and Technology Services, Bristlecone and Polaris Financial Technology Limited, where he was instrumental in modernizing business applications, building business intelligence platforms and transforming companies.

A true believer in technology, Enay is best known for his credo: “Tech is the Future; the Future is Tech.” The BITS Pilani alumnus is based out of Hyderabad, India.

Enugala Venkata Ramana is the partner and managing director of the MENA region at CriticalRiver.
He is responsible for shaping the strategy and leading the operations of our UAE and Qatar offices, overseeing the deployment of strategies and coordinating regional activities and inspiring people to deliver sustainable results to our clients.

With over 15 years of experience, Venkata brings a passion for innovation and quality in everything he does.
He was the key player in the architecting and delivering large projects across Singapore and the UAE at HCL Technologies from 2005 to 2014. He started his own venture OpenT IT Services in 2014, based out of Hyderabad, India. The company was later merged with CriticalRiver.

Venkata is a strong business development professional with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in strategy and marketing from Nanyang Technological University. He is also an alumnus of BITS, Pilani.
The engineer with a keen understanding of customer requirements is currently based in Dubai and Hyderabad.

As the vice-president and a key member of the executive team, Lavanya is responsible for heading the sales team for APAC and Europe region in CriticalRiver. She brings in 16 years of experience in sales and business development and is responsible for the growth of the company in the Asia Pacific region. She joined CriticalRiver in 2020. Previously, Lavanya served as the assistant vice-president of sales for ABSYZ Inc. She has been associated with software development services company Sri Prathinik Consulting, social-mobile-cloud company Pressmart, The Hackett Group and Koncept Ambience.

Lavanya has completed her education from St. Joseph college for Women and lives and works out of Hyderabad.

Rajesh Srinivas Rao brings over nearly three decades of insight and experience in navigating business challenges, achieving organizational goals, driving returns on investments, as well as ensuring client satisfaction and growth.

As the Senior Vice President of Delivery and Operations, Rajesh is responsible for formulating CriticalRiver’s strategic direction in India and accelerating digital initiatives for clients.

Prior to joining CriticalRiver, Rajesh held several senior executive management posts at companies like AT & T, United Health Care Corporation, Chubb & T-Mobile, and Virgin Mobile in various locations around the world. Rajesh comes with deep expertise and experience in managing large, diverse teams in nearshore and offshore delivery models, driving synergies for better business outcomes. Along with extensive experience in eCommerce, ERP, and digital transformation, Rajesh also provides a plethora of product understanding from the financial, insurance, healthcare, fashion, and retail sectors.

Rajesh holds an engineering degree in Computer Science and is a Certified CSQP with thirty years of C-level management and delivery experience in CMMi Level 5 and Big 4 consultancies.

Scott Birdsong is Senior Vice-president of CriticalRiver’s Utilities division, a global operation that specializes in mission critical Engineering & IT services for Electric, Gas, Water and Wastewater needs. From go-to-market strategy to demand generation and fulfillment, Scott leads all Sales and Delivery activities for the sector. His executive leadership responsibilities include talent acquisition and development, capabilities buildout, forging strategic alliances and partnerships, and cultivating strong customer and peer relationships across the industry.

Scott’s brings more than 25 years of technology services experience in the Utilities space with a track record for integrity, quality, and innovation in everything he does. Since joining CriticalRiver in 2019, he has led a formative expansion of the Utilities group on a global scale, growing the team from 36 to more than 150 professional engineers, IT consultants, team leaders and operational support in the United States, Canada, India, Costa Rica, and The Philippines.

Prior to joining CriticalRiver, Scott held IT and management consulting positions with industry giants such as Infosys, Accenture, IBM, Black & Veatch, and Capgemini. He served two terms as Chairman of the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) – Energy & Utilities SIG, designed and managed large Utilities transformation programs, and twice been accredited with CIS (Customer Information System) Implementation Project of the Year awards (2019, 2021). Scott graduated cum laude with Honors from the University of Houston. He and his wife, Deena, are currently building their forever home in the rolling landscape of the Texas Hill Country near Austin, TX.

Subbarao (Subbu) Kapila is the vice-president and head of services delivery and presales at CriticalRiver since 2020. In his role, he is responsible for multiple practices in digital transformation and business integration. Subbu is a highly accomplished global executive with over 25 years of IT service experience. He comes with deep expertise in conceptualizing, creating strategic roadmaps, and building and leading global engineering solutions and services teams to improve the top-line and bottom-line of the company. Subbu has successfully built critical teams and relationships that ensure business growth continuity in his role.

Previously, Subbu held various leadership roles in Cyient in Global Delivery, Global Innovation, and Global Sales/Pre-sales & overseeing business development processes and client engagement. He has also worked with Satyam Computer Services Ltd (Tech M) and GE-IBC.

Subbu is an alumnus of Marathwada University, Aurangabad, and has a management degree from GITAM University & also a Research Scholar. He lives and works out of Hyderabad.

As Advisory Board Member at CriticalRiver, Venkat brings 25+ years of IT experience with expertise in hyper-growth companies. At present, he serves as the Chief Information Officer at Ichor Systems Inc. He has previously held leadership positions at Neo Photonics Corp, JDS Uniphase Corp., and Oracle Corp.

Venkat’s experience spans global service delivery, applications development, support, IT security, strategy, and transformation, with a proven track record in each area. He has been a featured speaker on subjects such as technology, cloud, and IT transformation.

Venkat is based in San Ramon, California, and holds a BS in Engineering from PSG College of Technology, India.

Tony serves as the Vice President and Head of IT at Five9. He has previously held leadership positions at AT&T, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Tiburon, and Wind River Systems.

Tony has more than 20 years of experience in business and IT transformation, and a reputation for building and leading high-performance global, cross-functional teams in highly matrixed organizations. He is skilled at developing and delivering strategic solutions to further key business objectives.

Tony is based in Pleasanton, California. He holds a BBA from Simpson and an MBA in Computer Information Systems from California State University – Hayward.

Ghanim is an innovative and results-driven leader focused on achieving exceptional results in highly competitive environments that demand continuous improvement. He specializes in driving projects and customer service improvements while building partnerships with key business decision-makers. Ghanim enjoys building and motivating cross-functional teams to exceed expectations.

At present, Ghanim is Board Member and Acting CEO at the B7 Group of Companies in the UAE. He has held several other high-impact positions dealing with strategic planning, megaprojects, customer relationship management, commercial excellence, innovation, and digital technology.

Ghanim is based in the UAE.