Co-Founder, Training Ventures,

Shoba Purushothaman is an entrepreneur who has built fast growing, profitable, innovative companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia and is now focused on her third start-up, which is based in India.

After a 9-year career as a business journalist, including at the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in Washington DC, New York and London, Shoba become an entrepreneur in 1994 with a co-founder, Anthony Hayward in London. Since then, Shoba and Anthony’s partnership has established and built two successful global enterprises in the media and marketing industries. Their first business, started in London, was successfully acquired in 2001 and is now part of the Ogilvy brand within the WPP Group.

Shoba and Anthony began working on their third business Training Ventures in 2011 with the goal of building a global education and training enterprise that was based out of India at a time when India is becoming a key part of the global economy. The company, established in Pune has rolled out a technology-based award-winning product in corporate training that leverages the founders’ global operating track record and their expertise in online digital media.

In 2013, she became one of 15 Fellows selected for On the Board, a groundbreaking new initiative of The International Women’s Forum and The George Washington University’s School of Business that will prepare women leaders to become directors on corporate boards.

Shoba is a graduate of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia (B.A.) and holds a Master of Economic Communication from the American University in Washington, D.C. and the Owner-President Management program at Harvard Business School (2000). She was born and raised in Malaysia and speaks English, Tamil and Malay.