Meet the Team

The driving force behind WGA

Vishwajeet Betai
PRESIDENT
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A technologist by profession, he has spent over 30 years in the Electronics and Semiconductor industry. He was associated with the first Agni Missile Project, which was test-launched in 1989, and is honoured to have worked closely with Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, who was then leading the Indian Missile Development Programme. He works for Cadence Design Systems, which enables electronic system and semiconductor companies to create innovative products with tools, intellectual property, and hardware.

Vishwajeet is a strong believer of “giving back to the society” and is a passionate social worker. In his four-year stint at Rotary International, he was President of the Kharagpur Chapter from 1994 to 1995.  He has also volunteered at Samriddhi Trust, which aims to provide holistic education to unprivileged children in urban areas. Being part of the cultural committee in a large residential community, he has organised several events for many years in the past.

Sonal Betai
VICE PRESIDENT
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A Gujarati by blood, she has lived in different cities in India and this has exposed her to different communities. Her amicable personality helps her connect with others easily. The willingness to help others is imbibed in her nature, and she does so to her maximum potential.

Sonal had completed a diploma course in Interior Designing in 2002. She had also taught Garba and Dandiya to people of all ages for her community Navaratri event. She, along with a couple of her friends ran a community library for 8 years. Sonal and a team of family and friends successfully executed her idea of taking the community’s senior citizens to a picnic.

She had also volunteered to teach Hindi to the underprivileged children at Samridhdhi Trust for a period of time. Sonal has always strived to make a change in society and hopes to do the same in this group.

Harsha Ratnagrahi
VICE PRESIDENT
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She began her professional career as a Financial Accountant. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Hi-Educare Academics Pvt. Ltd. and the Director of Hi-Digital Care. She has also founded FnAJobs.com for helping needy and talented finance and accounting professionals.

Harsha was instrumental in bringing together many families that were scattered across the Whitefield area.

With her love and passion for the Gujarati culture, she hopes to help building this group and taking it to the next level.

Haresh Ratnagrahi
TREASURER
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He has spent over years designing and managing sophisticated financial transactions, mega-size M&A deals and corporate strategic decisions. He has successfully led corporate turnarounds to profitability, managed key investor relations on the Indian stock exchange and managed high-level relationships with the Top 10 investment banks and equity analysts.

He was a professor at Sydenham College of Commerce and has delivered more than 2000 hours of Finance and Accounts Training, He has founded Finance & Accounts Learning Academy at EXL, and under his leadership have trained more than 6000 employees.

Haresh is a Chartered Accountant (FCA), Cost and Management Accountant (CMA-India), Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Certified Information System Auditor (CISA), Certified Financial Manager (CFM), Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD), and a SAP Consultant FICO.

He founded and was an active volunteer of Opi Share & Care Public Charitable Trust.

Sweety Desai
GENERAL SECRETARY
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She is an entrepreneur running ABC Cooking/Baking Workshop at Brookfield from the past two and a half years. She is a certified preschool teacher and a storyteller from the British Council. She was an educator for more than 7 years at VIBGYOR High School and Maplebear Canadian Preschool. She was into organizing, co-coordinating and supervising various school events.

Sweety is also a member of the cultural committee at her residential community. She has conducted several cultural events including storytelling, calligraphy workshops, puppet shows, among others. She has been invited to judge several cooking contests at various places.

She has also contributed to various programmes for Adivasi children at the Tarpa Festival Silvassa, UT of Dadra & Nagar-Haveli for several years. She has been actively participating in events for social cause at old-age homes, blind schools, homes for terminally-ill cancer patients, such as Karunashraya, to do her bit for the society.

Kunti Khona
JOINT SECRETARY

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Born and bought up in Mumbai, with roots from Kutch, she is a software engineer by profession. She had worked with the Co-Op Bank as a software programmer before moving to Bangalore.

During her time in Mumbai, she contributed to a community project for building the community database in Gujarati. Benign and benevolent, Kunti is always ready to help and support her family, friends, and community in any way she can.

She is passionate about saving and maintaining a clean environment, and lists balcony gardening and composting as one of her hobbies.

With the advent of the Whitefield Gujarati group, Kunti hopes to build a vibrant Gujarati community in Whitefield.

Viren Shah
JOINT SECRETARY

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He is a software technologist who has 15 years of experience in embedded telemetry and wireless technologies. He is an expert in the GPS technology, and in satellite navigation system and enterprise mobile computers, with a diploma and a education in advanced computing, and electronics and communication engineering. He has also completed an executive management course from IIM Bangalore.

Having lived in Bangalore for the past 25 years, he has counselled a few Gujarati students and freshers, motivating them to take up an IT career, and helping them settle down in the city.

He always looks forward to helping out whomever he can in the community. He has a strong desire and dream to serve orphaned children and people of old age, and to work for their welfare and happiness.

Kanchi Patel
JOINT SECRETARY

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The ever-smiling Kanchi is an MBA Finance graduate and comes with 12 years of rich work experience in Market Operations with Asia’s No.1 commodity exchange, MCX. She had been an enthusiast in cultural activities, and had played important roles in planning and organising events in her school, college, apartment and at work.

Her family has been closely associated with an old age home Matoshree Vridhhashram located at Khadavli, Thane (Maharashtra), and together they have successfully executed events for more than 80 resident parents.

As a part of CSR activities, she was engaged in teaching art and craft to children at construction sites through Mumbai Mobile Creches, a daycare centre.

She has currently taken a break from work and is devoting her time to give back to society, and that has led her to become a part of the core team of this group.

Dolly Somaiya
JOINT SECRETARY

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She is a social entrepreneur. Over the last 15 years, Dolly has been associated with several social welfare organisations in the US and India. She coordinated fund-raising campaigns for the California Chapter of March Of Dimes and Children’s SOS Village, an internationally-recognized NGO for the welfare of underprivileged children, and was associated with a non-profit organization that believes in women empowerment.

After a successful career in marketing for the insurance and healthcare sectors for over a decade in the US, she led the expansion of Founding years learning solutions, and KLAY prep schools, an international chain of preschools providing quality daycare for children of working parents.

Dolly co-founded ED Signature Events, an event management company, which provides conceptualization to execution service for corporate as well as the community with a motivation to enable nuclear families to bond with the community during events to strengthen the social fabric and cultivate cultural diversity.