Board of Directors
Kumar Shah, Chairman of the Board
Our Chairman/CEO, Kumar Shah, is the visionary who founded Accelar to bring the power of the Internet, Web 2.0 and Social Media to the $95B Group Travel services market. With less than 30% of all Group Travel services market conducted on-line, he saw the opportunity to bring more sophisticated Web 2.0-based dynamic packaging and automation to the On-line Group Travel Services booking market. Kumar is a veteran of the high-tech industry and brings more than 15 years of experience in working with entrepreneurial start-up companies as senior executive and as an investor. Under his leadership, Accelar has become one of the leading providers of On-line Web/Internet solutions to the Group Travel services market, in general, and Ground Transportation services, in particular. Besides leading the Accelar venture, he is also the Managing Partner of an investment fund that has invested in a brick-and-mortar Group Travel services company, El Camino Trailways, to execute on the Click-and-mortar business model that has become his and our guiding principle. Kumar has led and guided many other ventures - Kasenna, Occam, AccessLan and others - and has been affiliated with several venture capital firms, including US Venture Partners. The companies Kumar has been affiliated with have delivered more than $1B of Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer products and services. Kumar has an MS from University of Massachusetts, Amherst and BS from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, India. Kumar resides in Silicon Valley and sets the strategic direction for our company and manages the most important capital assets for our company - technology, equity and human capital.
Mike Edwards, Director
Mike Edwards is a Director at GCA Savvian and heads the firm’s Communications Infrastructure investment banking efforts. Mike brings 17 years of investment banking experience to his role. Prior to joining GCA Savvian shortly after the firms founding in 2003, Mike worked as a Vice President in Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Banking Group. Mike has worked on a broad range of financing and merger transactions with communications industry leaders including ADC, Ascend Communications, Bay Networks, Cap Gemini, Ciena, Cisco Systems, CoSine Communications, E-TEK Dynamics, Extreme Networks, Harmonic, Hitachi, JDSU, Juniper Networks, Lucent Technologies, NetScreen Technologies, Nokia, Nortel Networks, NovAtel, ONI Systems, QLogic, ShoreTel and Siemens. Mr. Edwards graduated from Pepperdine University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
Sharad Dadbhawala, Director
Sharad Dadbhawala is associated with Accelar Inc as the Consulting CFO since October 2008. As a Finance professional he brings over 30 years of experience from IT, Manufacturing, services, Hedge fund, Entertainment and Publishing industries.He has been actively involved in raising institutional finance, negotiating strategic partnerships, tax planning and conducting training programs. He is engaged with the local community and has served as a Treasurer at the Jain Center in Milpitas, California.Sharad has earned his MBA from the prestigious Jamnalal Bajaj Institute Of Management Studies, University of Mumbai in India. He also received his Bachelor’s in Accounting and Audit from the same University.
