Smallholder
Farmers

Ramanarayanan Mahadevan

Chief Executive Officer

Ram has 25 years’ experience as a founder and entrepreneur within Olam. His career began in Tanzania, where he redesigned the field operating systems for first mile commodities procurement that was later rolled out across Olam globally. Ram subsequently founded and grew Olam’s packaged foods business to a market-leading SGD1 billion+ unicorn with over 1500 employees.

What inspires you about Jiva's mission?

“Small holder farmers contribute so much to the world and receive so little in return. Even the smallest improvements to farming practices and supply chain systems will provide the millions of people who keep food on our tables with the money needed to send their children to school, access medical care and break the cycle of poverty. I can’t think of a purpose to which I'd rather commit my energy and expertise.”

Arnav Pandey

Chief Product Officer

Arnav brings in 10 years of experience in engineering, product and supply chain management. He joined Jiva from Locus, a Supply Chain Optimization Platform where he was the Director of Solutions and Global Sales Engineering. He led development and deployment of multiple product streams, and managed multiple teams spread across 4 continents and was instrumental in growing Locus into a USD 300M+ company.

“Working on products that could help uplift the livelihoods of 500 million farmers is not only emotionally rewarding, but is an amazing product challenge. There are factors that we wouldn’t even consider designing for in other industries, or other parts of the world. In an era when 15min deliveries are becoming the norm, farm-to-table supply chain is still stuck in the 1900s. Ensuring that the farmers get their fair dues and the produce hits the market in its prime; is what we are solving for, one region at a time. This is basic, the possibilities post that are endless."

Tejas Dinkar

Chief Technology Officer

Tejas brings 15 years of experience as a founder and technologist. He joined Jiva from Quintype, where as the Founding Engineer and Head of Engineering, he grew a team of over 100, developing an engineering culture focused on passion for new technologies, code quality and delivering value to users.

“Being thoughtful around what we prioritise at Jiva, means that we’re always keeping the focus on delivering direct impact to millions of farmers. We also keep a close eye on what’s sustainable for the team; we’re here to deliver long term benefit, rather than burning out before we can do so. Our team is our lifeblood, the added bonus for me is that they’re awesome humans too.”

Sunny Verghese

Founder & Director

Executive Director, Co-Founder and Group CEO of Olam. Following the re-organisation of the Group, Sunny holds charge as CEO of Olam Global Agri and Olam International.

Olam was founded after Sunny was given a mandate by his employer at the time, Kewalram Chanrai Group, to start an agricultural-products business for the Group. Prior to his work with the KC Group, Sunny worked for Unilever in India.

Since 2018, Sunny Verghese has served as Chair of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a global, CEO-led organisation dedicated to accelerating the transition to a sustainable world.

Mr Verghese previously chaired CitySpring Infrastructure Management Pte Ltd, a listed Business Trust in Singapore and was also a Commissioner of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission (BSDC). He has won several awards including ‘Outstanding Chief Executive’ at the Singapore Business Awards in 2007, ‘Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ for Singapore in 2008 and ‘Best CEO of the Year 2011’ at the Singapore Corporate Awards. He was also awarded the Public Service Medal by the Government of the Republic of Singapore in 2010.

Suresh Sundararajan

Founder & Director

Suresh is Olam’s Chief Digital Officer, a member of Olam International and Olam Global Agri’s Executive Committee and a key architect of Jiva.

Suresh joined Olam in 1996 as Finance Manager in Cameroon before moving to Singapore in 1998 to head the Corporate Affairs function, which oversees Financial Accounting, Tax, Secretarial, Audit as well as the equity capital raising activities of the Group. In late 2008, Suresh moved to manage Business and Corporate Finance and led the newly created Global Business Services function, responsible for end-to-end business processes and analytics. In 2016 Suresh assumed the lead role for several corporate functions, including Digital, Tax, Legal, IT, Global Business Services and Strategic Investments. In 2020 Suresh's role expanded to include Risk, Market Compliance and Insurance as well as the business oversight role for Farmer Services Platform and EcoCal.