Top 0 Asian Stars in UK Tech - JOOMAG version Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015 | Page 31

Top 100 Asian Stars in UK Tech 2015

Anil Pilla
CEO - DigitasLBi UK
Anil Pillai is CEO UK, Middle East and Africa at DigitasLBi, a global marketing and technology
agency that transforms businesses for the digital age. During his time at the helm of the UK
business, Anil was responsible for growing the agency’s annual revenue to in excess of £100m.
He also expanded DigitasLBi’s family of brands to include Lost Boys, Kitcatt Nohr and DigitasLBi
Commerce and added to the client list which includes Virgin Atlantic, Lloyds, BT, Peroni, Coca
Cola, Honda and E-ON. A Cambridge University graduate, Anil started his career at Oyster
Partners before joining LBi in 2006. Since the he has held the roles of Client Partner, Managing
Director and latterly as CEO of LBi UK before taking up his new remit. For more than 3 years he
also served as Co-Chair of the IPA’s Digital Business Group.

Ashish Puri
Early Stage Investor - Episode1 Ventures
Ashish (Ash) Puri is an entrepreneur turned VC and the youngest member of the team at
Episode 1 Ventures, a venture capital firm based in London that invests in software driven
businesses. Ash has been closely associated with the European Tech scene since 2007. Before
joining Episode1, Ash was helping ASOS with its international expansion in Asia based on his
experience founding and running a premium fashion ecommerce business in India. He is a
Board Observer at eMoov, Adludio and Swift Shift; a mentor at Seedcamp and Startupbootcamp
FinTech. Ash has previously worked in Venture Capital with Partech Ventures and Sofinnova
Partners in Paris. He started his career as a Consultant at Computer Associates and holds
double-masters with a MS in Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and a
Diplome d’Ingenieur from Ecole Superieure d’Electricite (Supelec), France. He also earned a
Bachelor of Engineering in Telecommunications from Visvesvaraya Technological University,
India.

Debu Purkayastha
Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Octopus Investments
Debu Purkayastha is currently Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Octopus Ventures, a premier
European venture capital firm. Prior to Octopus, till early 2014, Debu spent 6 years at Google.
Debu was Principal - New Business Development at Google with a wide product mandate
spanning several key strategic focus areas globally. Previously, Debu was Google’s Principal
- Corporate Development spearheading its global M&A and Investment efforts including the
acquisition of ITA Software (travel search), DailyDeal.de (offers), Gizmo5 (VoIP), Phonetic Arts
(text to speech), Green Parrot Pictures (video image processing), Zynamics (security software)
amongst several others. Debu is also a founding member of Google “Campus”, a seven-storey
co-working space for startups in East London’s Tech City. Debu sits on the Board of MercyCorps
(NGO), Advisory Board of Sadara Ventures (VC Fund) & previously used to sit on the Boards of
Fon (wireless) & Mobile Planet (mobile apps). Prior to Google, Debu headed Sabre’s Corporate
Development/M&A team in EMEA & in a past life was a Telecoms/Media/Technology M&A
Banker with Salomon Smith Barney and Citigroup in Wall Street, Silicon Valley & London. Debu
has a MBA from London Business School & is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

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