Deepak Goel, Senior Advisor
Click here to contact Deepak Goel
Deepak is a senior advisor to Probum around consumer-focused and technology-enabled business models and angel investing. He is a serial entrepreneur and has been with three successful startups in their early and growth stages (0-1 million, 1-10 million and 10-100 million) with experiences across domains (email, content, coupons, retail, e-commerce, real estate, maps, traffic & education), product types (consumer, enterprise, mobile, social and platform), and functions (CXO, product management & marketing, engineering). Currently, he is the Chief Technology Officer of Packback Books (a Chicago-based startup funded by Mark Cuban & other notable angel investors). Most recently, he was Head of Global Product Management & Product Marketing teams at Nokia Traffic where he restructured the product management team and created their product roadmap for 2014. Prior to that, he was the Chief Product Officer of IndiaHomes (a Foundation Capital & Helion Ventures company) where he built & led product management, marketing and engineering teams. Before that, he was Director of Product Management at Coupons.com (COUP) where he created & grew several multi-million dollar products. He started his career and progressed into management roles at Microsoft.
Deepak is a mentor at 500 Startups and an angel investor in few startups (Packback Books, Sverve, TheStylisted). He is also an advisor to Khosla Impact Fund & Impact Engine accelerator and advises several companies on strategy, product, marketing and technology. Over the last two years, Deepak has reviewed more than 600 business plans and has advised more than 100 startups (Cuponomia, Tushky, Babajob, ShelfFlip, Mealsharing, TheCatch, etc) in various areas. He has also judged several business plan competitions in University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Deepak is a computer science graduate from IIT, Delhi, India and holds an MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He is a Mensa member and has patents for 4 of his inventions (3 issued, 1 pending).
KEVIN GILBERT, Senior Advisor
Click here to contact Kevin Gilbert
Kevin is a senior advisor to Probum focused on helping enterprises at all stages in their development achieve profitable growth and secure the capital necessary for such growth. He brings a unique perspective on the use of M&A transactions of all types to help enterprises achieve their objectives having led many such transactions for over 25 years.
Kevin is currently the head of corporate and business development for two earlier stage enterprises—Third Stream Bioscience Inc. and NanoCarbons LLC. Third Stream is developing a novel topical antimicrobial whose base technology was acquired from Procter & Gamble that delivers on novel label claims of multi-hour persistence and anti-viral effect to compete in the hand hygiene and acne and eczema therapy markets. NanoCarbons is a carbon materials leader in the rapidly expanding, high power density, ultracapacitor energy storage market.
Previously Kevin was VP, Business Development, IP Licensing and IP Asset Management for Motorola’s Networks and Enterprise Business, a $15B division, and VP, Business Development for Motorola’s Government and Public Safety Business, a $5B division. Prior to that Kevin was VP, Corporate Development for Motorola’s Corporate Strategy Office.
While at Motorola his key responsibilities included accelerating profitable growth through strategy development and planning and effective use of a variety of transactions (acquisitions, equity joint ventures, venture investments, co-development, OEM) to execute strategy. Kevin successfully completed more than one hundred business transactions at Motorola, including many complex cross border transactions in more than 20 different countries. Significant efforts centered on major investments in wireless broadband, wireless infrastructure joint ventures, semiconductor microprocessor and process ventures and many more.
Prior to joining Motorola, Kevin was a transactions and securities attorney with a large Chicago-based multinational law firm, McDermott, Will & Emery. Kevin graduated summa cum laude/bronze tablet with a degree in accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and cum laude with a Juris Doctor from the University of California at Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law. Kevin also has completed extensive Graduate level MBA executive programs through both the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and a Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and Motorola University joint program.
Kevin has been a guest lecturer on M&A at the UCLA Anderson Graduate School and at the Purdue University Krannert Graduate School. He is a Certified Public Accountant and has successfully passed the State of Illinois Bar exam. His favorite outdoor activities are chasing around his soon to be seven year old son, running and golf.
SANJEEV MAHAJAN, Senior Advisor and Managing Director
Click here to contact Sanjeev Mahajan or email him at sanjeev[at]probum[dot]com
Sanjeev Mahajan is a seasoned advisor to CEOs/Boards, entrepreneur, and investor operating from the US and India. He provides pragmatic advisory and execution support to PE/VC firms, portfolio companies, and large/mid-sized companies in Financial Services, Healthcare, and Technology-enabled consumer industries. He is passionate about client's most pressing issues around new business models, growth, go-to-market, sales & service, and customer-facing operations. He is also mentoring and providing angel investments to start-ups. He has also been a speaker at various conferences in the US and Europe.
Sanjeev brings unique perspectives to support his clients that he draws from his diverse P&L and senior staff experiences as a management consultant and industry leader. He has also helped Fortune 500 companies and startups to incubate, launch, and grow new businesses, such as Global Health Exchange and Litholink. Most recently, Sanjeev has been an executive management consultant at PricewaterhouseCooper's (PwC) Diamond Advisory Services where he has not only helped his Fortune 500 clients but also played a leadership role in PwC's foray into mid-tier clients and customer-focused services practice generating tens of millions of dollars. Prior to PwC, Sanjeev worked at Discover Financial Services with management responsibilities for revenue diversification, sales & operations, and continuous improvements. Before that, Sanjeev had regional sales management and operational responsibilities at M&T Bank. Sanjeev's initial professional experiences were at Sabre Group (formerly American Airlines) and Tatas, a leading $100bn global conglomerate.
Sanjeev is equally passionate about his family and community. He loves travelling and watching movies (both hollywood and bollywood) with his family, and playing tennis with his two kids. He also focuses on educational empowerment and preventive healthcare in emerging markets, particularly in India.
Sanjeev has an MBA from Chicago Booth, and MS and BS in engineering from the University of Cincinnati and NIT, Nagpur, India respectively. In addition, Sanjeev has attended executive course at IIM-Ahmedabad.