Arun Tolani
Senior Advisor, Focus, LLC

Mr. Tolani has over thirty years of management experience in publicly held and venture capital backed global IT and BPO industries and was a pioneer in the IT industry in India. His experience includes the creation of solutions and services in the banking, insurance, telecommunications, high technology and healthcare Industries. Over the last 16 years he has been an entrepreneur and has established two start-up businesses and grown their revenues rapidly.

Mr. Tolani has played pivotal roles in two corporate turnarounds and led three acquisitions and two mergers, and has extensive international experience in the US, UK and Asia. He has held board positions at ICIM International Inc., iCelerate Inc. and Morarji, Dorman Smith (a leading Indian firm in the switchgear business - later sold to Legrand of France). He is also a charter member of TIE, a global entrepreneur network in Silicon Valley, as well as a strategic advisor and mentor for several young companies in the areas of sustainable technologies, personal health management and SAAS based business solutions.

In 2000, Mr. Tolani started iCelerate Inc., a venture-backed company focused on providing technology based business solutions to Fortune 1000 firms. In 2001, he raised another $12 million to establish the business. The firm grew profitably and, in 2005, was successfully merged with e4e, a silicon valley based business services outsourcing company, and continued to grow its core business and its technology platforms.

From 1991 to 1999, Mr. Tolani was the founder and CEO of ICIM International Inc., a Fujitsu joint venture and now publicly traded as Zensar Technologies. During this period he grew the business globally to $60 million to provide offshore services to customers such as Cisco Systems, Sprint, British Gas, Fujitsu and Bank of America in a global engagement and delivery model.

Prior to 1991, Mr. Tolani was based in India and was responsible for product operations at ICIM, an ICL, UK joint venture, where he led the complete revamp of the company’s product line. The creation of strategic partnerships and alliances to strengthen ICIM’s position in the financial services and manufacturing markets resulted in the company being the leading provider of solutions in these sectors.

Mr. Tolani started his career with DCM in the mid 70’s. DCM was one of the top five Indian business groups at the time. He was selected in the prestigious DCM senior management training program where he trained in general management to be part of a group of young managers to assume leadership in the corporation. His first executive position was to grow the sales of DCM Data Products. During his tenure, DCM established itself as a leader in the industry with the largest customer base and focus in the financial services, manufacturing and consumer business sectors.

Mr. Tolani graduated with a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1974) and was sponsored for executive education at the Harvard Business School, London Business School and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad.

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