Lakshmi Naga Potluri

CEO

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India20 yrs 8 mos experience
Most Likely To SwitchHighly Stable

Key Highlights

  • Co-founded Jabong, a leading e-commerce platform.
  • Led DCF Ventures to create India's largest innovation ecosystem.
  • Mentored over 150 startups, driving entrepreneurship.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a seasoned leader in FinTech and e-commerce, specializing in growth strategies and innovation.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Revenue GenerationStrategic ThinkingBoard DevelopmentStakeholder RelationsEarly-stage StartupsProblem SolvingAcceleratorGrowth CapitalOrganizational Effectiveness

Other Skills

OperationsAlternative InvestmentsFinTechIndependent DirectorAngel InvestingE-commerceManagementBusiness PlanningProduct ManagementStrategyExecutive ManagementMarket PenetrationBusiness DevelopmentPrivate EquityCross-functional Team Leadership

About

As the quote by Michael Jordan goes - “I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying”; I built my expertise on establishing businesses in new geographies with local complexities and global vision. My experience as the Co-Founder of Jabong and Country Head of Shopify.com in India has given me the ability to identify startups that have potential for investments/acquisitions and help them scale as well. Having built 4 digital companies from scratch with complete P&L responsibility – Jabong(acquired by Myntra-Flipkart, Walmart Group), Driverskart(acquired by DriveU), Shopify India & DCF Ventures has helped me transform my vision into reality. Intuitive, EQ-led, and analytical capabilities made me not only deliver business goals but also equipped me to create sustainable and culture-led organizations. As the CEO of DCF Ventures (corporate venture capital and innovation services provider), I have joy in working towards growing the presence of DCF across five countries and generate revenue opportunities with corporates and multiple state governments to promote digitization and drive entrepreneurship; designed, strategized, and set up Maharashtra’s largest innovation ecosystem. From mentoring 150+ startups, leading personal investments in 8+ startups to directly facilitating investments for corporate and family offices, making people’s dreams come true, and transferring their vision to the ground is what drives me to work every day. In my free time, I enjoy listening to enriching content on various platforms, spending time with my Toy Poodle, gardening and staying connected to the lives of those who have been part of my journey. I also nurture fitness activities and enjoy leading a healthy and nutritious lifestyle. I look forward to sharing my journey with you all and embarking on an adventurous professional roller-coaster!

Experience

20 yrs 8 mos
Total Experience
2 yrs 10 mos
Average Tenure
4 yrs 10 mos
Current Experience

Tira

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Jun 2024Present · 1 yr 11 mos · Mumbai, Maharashtra, India · Hybrid

  • At Tira Beauty, I’m part of the mission to rewrite the narrative of beauty in India. Every day begins with a simple question: what do our customer's really want?
  • As CRO, I lead growth across both retail and digital channels while strengthening the backbone of customer experience through supply chain excellence. With 22 prestige destinations and expanding, we invest in differentiated experiences. We bring the best of global beauty — from Fenty Beauty to Korean skincare heroes — while ensuring nationwide access through our digital platform.
  • This journey is about creating a brand that inspires confidence, trust, and joy for every customer we serve.
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsOperationsRevenue GenerationOrganizational EffectivenessStrategic Thinking

Trigyn technologies

Independent Director

Jul 2021Present · 4 yrs 10 mos · India · Hybrid

Board DevelopmentGrowth CapitalOrganizational EffectivenessStrategic Thinking

B capital group

Head of Asia Business Development

Jul 2021Jun 2023 · 1 yr 11 mos · Mumbai | Singapore | Australia

  • B Capital Group is a global firm specializing in equity investing in venture and growth-stage companies that have achieved traction with customers. Through our extensive global network and exclusive partnership with The Boston Consulting Group, B Capital helps high growth startups navigate business challenges, raise capital, and attract talented leadership at key points of their journeys to scale. For more information, visit http://www.bcapgroup.com/.
  • As Head of Asia Portfolio Business Development my role is to help our SaaS portfolio companies expand within the Asia Pacific region.
  • July -Dec 2021 - Consultant
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsAcceleratorOperationsRevenue GenerationGrowth Capital+3

Global fintech forum

Founding Member, Global Fintech Forum

Apr 2021Sep 2025 · 4 yrs 5 mos · India · Hybrid

  • Global Fintech Forum is on a mission to enhance Asia's fintech startups and to provide a platform to accelerate the fintech startups with access to investors, sandbox. With a network of 1000 financial services professionals, digital leaders and innovation heads who are on the same mission, this forum works closely with industry associations, investors, south east asian trade bodies, innovation hubs and the startup ecosystem to power innovation in the sector.
Stakeholder RelationsEarly-Stage StartupsAlternative InvestmentsFinTech

Dcf ventures

Chief Executive Officer | Partner

Oct 2017Jul 2021 · 3 yrs 9 mos · Mumbai, Tel Aviv, New York · On-site

  • India's first boutique innovation consulting firm, focused on providing innovation services to corporates, governments and municipalities across the world. We bring global innovation from US, Israel, Korea, Germany to your organization/entity to create innovative, impactful and cutting edge solutions to suit your requirements.
  • Created India’s first innovation platform for bridging the gap between government enterprises/traditional businesses, corporates and startups(India & global) to generate disruptive value for all stakeholders;
  • Advised on startup policy and implementation with four government cities/states looking for ways to accelerate their local startup ecosystem; Government of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra (Thane, Pimpri Chinchwad)
  • Conceptualized and rolled out sector agnostic Lighthouse Accelerator program, India’s first two way accelerator program in collaboration with Israel & Hong Kong entities, onboarded marquee mentors, investors and successfully running cohorts(fintech, proptech, healthtech, enterprise and consumertech)
  • Responsible for driving adoption of new and emerging transformative technologies amongst corporates and governments through multiple hackathons/pitchfest, corporate innovation programs across India, Israel, Paris, UK etc.,
  • Drive venture investing for family offices and corporates to help make strategic investments and also to enable organizations to acquire relevant startups(completed 3 acquisitions, facilitated 7 investments )
  • >>The above requires constant interaction with the global startup ecosystem, collaborating with startups, VCs, Incubators, accelerators, industry bodies etc., for deal origination, portfolio advancement staying on top of the emerging trends and for identifying white spaces
  • THANE GLOBAL IMPACT HUB: http://www.thaneglobalimpacthub.com/
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsAcceleratorOperationsRevenue GenerationGrowth Capital+3

Network18 media & investments limited

Chief of Staff/Chief Growth Officer

Apr 2016Oct 2017 · 1 yr 6 mos · Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

  • Collaborated with key leadership for turning around P&L(USD 22mn) by revising digital strategy, processes, building world class team and with continuous performance driven decision making Network 18 Digital among the top two digital media houses in India touching over 100 million unique visitors in a two year period; vernacular digital content platform was launched and attained #1 positioning in the category during this time
  • Formulate and implement overall digital strategy and be involved in building a sustainable digital business, in house
  • Set the vision and enabled team to develop new revenue channels to pre-empt industry changes across subscription, branded content and strategic syndications(10% revenue contributor) to solidify the position of the business
  • Created brand positioning through credible partnerships for new revenue channels and created valuable international IP for the first time in the digital business for the group also driving incremental 10% revenues within first year of launch
Problem SolvingStrategic Thinking

Early stage / startup advisor

VNS Advisors

Jan 2015Mar 2019 · 4 yrs 2 mos · Mumbai Area, India, Singapore

  • We work closely with early and mid stage startups (and growth companies) to assist entrepreneurs towards building and scaling businesses. We work closely with the teams to help them crystallise their strategies, prepare their go-to market strategy, introduce them to relevant industry contacts. In businesses that are capital intensive or looking to scale rapidly we guide them on fund raising. Right from the business model, the pitch decks(presentations), prepare them for the investor presentations through direct one-one coaching, introduction to subject matter experts.
  • 1.Driverskart.com (on demand drivers platform that was successfully acquired by DriveU)
  • 2. Purganics(India's first fully organic line of feminine hygiene products)
  • 3. Zaamordiamonds (promoted by one of the most prestigious jewellery brand in South India, an initiative of the VB group)h
  • 4. NawaabSheikh, one of the first cloudkitchens that successfully expanded through a franchise model and was among the top two biryani serving destinations in Chennai
  • and more...
Problem SolvingStrategic Thinking

Velvetcase

Board Observer

Nov 2014Mar 2020 · 5 yrs 4 mos · Mumbai Area, India

Growth CapitalStrategic Thinking

Shopify

Country Director(Shopify)

Jan 2013Dec 2014 · 1 yr 11 mos · India · On-site

  • Complete responsibility for P&L, establishing operations from zero to full-fledged sales, customer support, marketing and product teams comprising of core 10 member team and an extended 70 member team;
  • Devised the end to end marketing strategy, drove digital channels(PPC, Affiliate, Social etc.,) , funnel management, identified partners, agencies and used analytics driven decision to grow the revenues 15x times in 18 months; 100x increase in customers
  • Take customer feedback to establish localized product features and changed the product to suit local market requirements, established merchant education platforms and strategized the India Launch to displace existing players
  • Set up pan India direct sales channels in 8 key cities and onboarded key telecom partner Airtel in a span of 3 months
  • Increased web traffic to shopify.in site 6x times with 1000 record sign ups in one week establishing Shopify among the top 3 ecommerce platforms in the country within 7 months
  • Set strategy to enable highest customer retention rate in Shopify India history for first year of operation while managing the financial and operational budgets achieving P&L objective by driving long term subscriptions
  • SKILLS: Developing and scaling new markets, Digital Marketing, Dealer- Distributor network, B2B Sales operations
  • Note: This engagement was a Shopify-Singtel partnership
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsAccelerator

Jabong

Managing Director/Co-Founder, Rocket Internet incubation,www.jabong.com

Oct 2011Dec 2012 · 1 yr 2 mos · New Delhi · On-site

  • Integral in establishing and growing the company from inception, hiring senior management and building a motivated 400+ person high performance team within 5 months
  • Worked closely to setup the key marketing team across SEO, SEM, Social channels; devised strategy, brought in highly performance driven decision making and drove daily metric monitoring required for B2C e-commerce business
  • Jabong onboarded 300 + lifestyle brands, achieved 100% growth week on week in visitors, transactions and within 3 months of launch became the top 100 websites for online purchases (vs industry standards of upto 18months)
  • Launched 3 new categories in 21 days from design, planning to execution with low inventory risk. Category contribution overshot expectations and achieved 100% growth and is targeted to contribute 65% of total sale
  • Strategized and executed highly successful and innovative promotion (first in India offering of 80 unique European brands) that increased sales across categories 4 fold
  • Instrumental in executing the TVC campaign with huge success that quadrupled visitors and sales
  • Now part of Walmart
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsOperationsRevenue GenerationOrganizational EffectivenessStrategic Thinking

The chennai angels

Angel Investor

Apr 2011Oct 2017 · 6 yrs 6 mos · Chennai Area, India · Remote

  • One of the nation's active sector agnostic Angel investment community - was started with the objective of fostering Entrepreneurship with prime focus on nurturing and mentoring new generation entrepreneurs.
  • http://www.thechennaiangels.com/aboutus.html
  • Investor in travellingspoon.com, everestedusys pvt. ltd(qedquest) and velvetcase.com
Problem SolvingOrganizational Effectiveness

Goldman sachs

PIPG Asia

Jul 2010Sep 2011 · 1 yr 2 mos · Hong Kong

  • Work closely with functional teams to identify and resolve issues, manage project risk, and allocate resources.
  • Set expectations effectively through regular project updates to snr management and all stakeholders
  • Work closely with partner in preparing pitch books identifying new market themes across asset classes, to pitch to external senior management, private wealth clients and bring in new business
  • Strong operational knowledge of front to back trade processes to ensure quick transaction of trades
  • Client On-Boarding and Client Service experience with knowledge of KYC and AML
  • Respond to client request(real money, leveraged clients) for FX quotes, pitch FX ideas based on macro developments, deliver macro news real time to team and clients
Problem SolvingStakeholder RelationsOperationsRevenue GenerationOrganizational EffectivenessStrategic Thinking

Ifmr holdings private limited

Consultant

May 2009Jul 2009 · 2 mos

  • Identify and evaluate investment opportunities in the SME sector with industry specific focus
  • Devise end to end logistics for firms entry into the SME asset class
  • Due diligence of microfinance institutions
Stakeholder RelationsOperationsRevenue Generation

Merrill lynch

Summer intern

Jan 2008Jan 2008 · 0 mo

  • Summer Associate, Fixed Income & Equities
  • Conducted fundamental research on NYSE listed companies in the biotechnology and retail sector, to determine opportunities and presented investment recommendations
  • Structured investment strategies for high net worth clients using diverse asset classes

Ibm

Senior Consultant

Jan 2002Jan 2007 · 5 yrs

  • 5 Invention Achievement Plateau Awards (awarded to ~1% of IBM’s 320,000 workforce) with 22 pending US patent applications in areas of pervasive devices and futuristic technologies.
  • Senior Consultant, Healthcare Lifesciences Industry Solutions (2005-2007)
  • Led team across continents to develop technology integration strategies, and provided technical solutions for a complex clinical information system with a data repository critical for IBM Europe. Reported to client Founder, client CEO, and IBM Switzerland executive
  • Managed delivery of component of a $24MM deal with IBM Canada to build the Pan Canadian Disease Surveillance System. Ensured timely delivery and mitigated risks
  • Broke down business model, analyzed customer inefficiencies to develop customized technical solutions to enhance clinical studies performance for the largest mother child center in Canada. Reduced processing time from 2 days to less than 30 seconds
  • Account Management for WebSphere Application Server for Telecom (WAS-T)
  • Handled business partners (Ericsson, Argentina and Alcatel, Brazil) as a technical liaison to gather requirements for product enhancements coordinating with IBM Brazil, IBM Argentina, IBM US and business clients in Latin America.
  • Analyzed competitive environment, redefined product/ service features and pricing strategy to increase revenues from targeted segments.
  • Required to stay informed of competitors' activities through information networks and participation in professional organizations, developing and maintaining effective relationships within the industry.
  • Creating product/service awareness of the new product concepts in the niche market and with existing clients, generating business plans and devising market penetration strategies with existing clients.

Education

Columbia Business School

MBA

Jan 2007Jan 2009

The University of Texas at El Paso

Master of Science — Computer Science

Madras University

Bachelor of Science — Mathematics

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