Convergence Catalyst was established in 2011, by highly experienced Telecom and Internet industry professionals with over 80 years of combined industry experience. The company has been formed with the idea of aiding various organizations in the Hi-Tech space to fine-tune their business and product offering strategies in order to emerge as leaders in the rapidly converging world.
What started as an effort to help Telecom, Mobile and Internet companies meander through and grow in the Emerging Markets, has now evolved into aiding companies across all verticals and geographies integrate and make the best out of emerging digital technologies.
We are evolving and transforming just like everybody else, playing a Catalytic role in the fast emerging Digital Convergence space… Adopting Taoistic “Scholar-Warrior” principles (among other things), while trying to stick to our existential tenet - “We cannot win, unless we help others win!”.
Convergence Catalyst’s clients include large global technology (Fortune 50) leaders, leading investment firms and mid-sized, forward-looking technology companies, and startups. Our team’s analysis and viewpoints are frequently captured by leading business and technology publications around the world.
Founders
Vijay Ramanathan (Managing Partner) brings two decades of international industry experience with over 15 years in the telecom industry. His expertise lies in Product Management & Marketing - from Strategy to Positioning & Execution. He brings a keen insight on key Market Trends that can be converted into actionable plans.
Armed with firsthand knowledge of the India Telecom market & the Indian consumer, he has a deep understanding of the hygiene & requirements needed to succeed in the market, having launched upwards of 50 handsets from the very low tier to the high tier segments. He witnessed & participated firsthand in the explosive hockeystick growth in the Indian Telecom market for the last 10 years and has developed a well rounded knowledge of the dynamics in the Operator, Handset, Infrastructure, Regulatory, Retail & Distribution areas in the India Telecom market - keeping a keen eye on advancements in the Wireless/Internet/Gadget/VAS/general technology areas globally.
Most recently, he headed Handset Marketing for MTS, a CDMA operator in India. Prior to that, he was Head, Product Marketing at Motorola Mobile Devices between 2003-08, responsible for all handset product launches & in reaching No.2 in India. He has also held Business & Product positions in Telecom Software, Cellular Infrastructure & Auto Navigation industries in USA and India.
Jayanth Kolla (Partner) brings over Sixteen years of experience in Technology, Product Marketing, Research and Strategy Consulting in the Telecom, Internet, Mobile and Emerging Technologies - AI/ML, Blockchain & IoT - domains. He is an advisor to the world's leading technology firms, young & fast growing startups and the investor community. And, has held various roles with Telecom Carriers, Device Manufacturers and Management Consulting firms in the past.
Currently, as a Partner with Convergence Catalyst, Jayanth leverages his hands-on experience and domain expertise to advise various global and Indian technology companies to align themselves with the ever-changing trends, and evolve as leaders in the Digital Convergence space. He mentors a number of progressive and fast growing technology startups on Product & Service Offerings, Business Planning, Go-To-Market Strategies and Fund Raising. Jayanth is also an advisor to various PE & VC firms, Institutional Investors, Hedge Funds and FIIs on private equity transactions and public equity positions.
Jayanth is an oft-quoted industry leader whose viewpoints and analyst notes are regularly published in leading business publications including Mint, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune and Financial Times. He is a keynote speaker at various industry thought-leadership conclaves, and is also an empaneled judge for MIT's 'Emerging Technologies Young Innovators' (EmTech) Awards', 2017.
Prior to co-founding Convergence Catalyst, Jayanth has experience working with Analysys Mason, Nokia, Motorola, Kyocera Wireless and Tata Teleservices.
Principals
Bruce Molloy has over Twenty-Five years of substantial experience in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Analytics, and Machine Learning. He has founded and led cognitive-processing, help desk software company from startup to successful IPO (Molloy Group w/ ServiceWare).
Bruce has extensive experience in organization building and management. He is well regarded, and connected in the help desk community, conducts regular presentations at AI/ML conferences, connected into analyst community. He has invented and patented a “System and Method for Representing and Retrieving Knowledge in an Adaptive Cognitive Network”, U.S. Patent Serial No. 5,787,234, which was integral part of Molloy Group help desk solution.
He has also led machine-learning, web-mining software company Connotate, from zero revenues to market leadership in a field of 60 competitors. Bruce has marketed, negotiated and closed 6 and 7 figure deals with Bloomberg, Novartis, Rhone Poulenc Rorer, Dow Jones, Goldman Sachs, T-Mobile, Citadel, DOD, Toys R US, and others.
Bruce heads Convergence Catalyst’s US operations. He has a BA in Music and Physics from Columbia University
Monika Sharma has over fourteen years of experience in the Wireless Telecom industry in RF & VAS domains. Working with leading organizations such as ITI Ltd, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Qualcomm and Aricent, she has experience in multiple roles including RF Planning & Optimization Manager, Mobile Chipsets Test Lead and SDP Platform Implementation Lead.
Implementing the GSM network of BSNL (in the West zone), setting up the RF test lab (for Tata Teleservices) and Mobile Handset testing lab (for Qualcomm), implementing India’s first VAS Service Delivery Platform (SDP) for Airtel, she has managed to garner crucial experience in vast and critical projects, thus covering the entire wireless telecom area.
At Convergence Catalyst, she leads the secondary research team. Monika holds an Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication from REC, Hamirpur.