Our founders, Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, started LEAD Group in 2012 with a vision to provide disruptive school ed-tech solutions.
Since then, LEAD Group has grown into a team of proficient individuals striving to transform education.
Together we aspire to make excellent education accessible and affordable to every child.
Sumeet Mehta is Co-Founder and CEO of LEAD Group, India’s only School Edtech unicorn.
As Co-Founder and CEO of LEAD Group, Sumeet’s mission is to make excellent education accessible to every child, by transforming schools across India. Sumeet draws inspiration from his journey of growing up in a family of teachers in a small town in India. After running consumer product businesses in Singapore and running an Education company in India, Sumeet became a teacher and opened schools in talukas of Maharashtra. His experience of running schools helped him develop LEAD’s Integrated School Edtech System and implement it in other schools.
LEAD Integrated System transforms a school’s learning outcomes by empowering teachers, school principals and students. It achieves this by combining deeply researched curriculum, pedagogy, and technology into a simple school-in-a-box solution. LEAD Group today reaches over 9,000 schools across India, impacting over 5 million students; and empowers more than 50,000 teachers.
Before founding LEAD Group, Sumeet was the Chief Executive Officer at Zee Learn (2007 to 2012) which grew 5X during his tenure. Prior to this, Sumeet spent eight years at Procter & Gamble Singapore, where he led Healthcare and Skincare businesses across the APAC region before returning to India and setting base in Mumbai.
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and PEC Chandigarh, Sumeet grew up in Pathankot, Punjab, and currently lives in Mumbai with his mother Brij; his spouse, Smita, who is also Co-Founder, LEAD Group; and their two teenage kids.
Sumeet is an avid reader and loves traveling to new countries.
Smita Deorah is Co-Founder and Co-CEO at LEAD Group, India’s only School Edtech unicorn. With over 22 years of experience, Smita has built innovative curricula to transform teaching – learning in India’s schools; and has also trained educators across India.
At LEAD Group, Smita steers education research, product development and capability building. She has been instrumental in developing the LEAD Integrated System, which is benchmarked with the best education systems globally; and contextualised for India’s schools. The LEAD Integrated System transforms a school’s learning outcomes by empowering teachers, school principals and students. It achieves this by combining deeply-researched curriculum, pedagogy, and technology into a simple school-in-a-box solution. LEAD Group today reaches over 9000 schools across India, impacting over 5 million students; and empowers more than 50,000 teachers.
Prior to co-founding LEAD Group, Smita founded Sparsh, an NGO that worked for the uplift of Anganwadis in Mumbai in association with the Maharashtra government. She implemented a ‘pre-school in a box’ solution in 16 Anganwadis to prepare students for school, and to reduce dropouts and low attendance.
Recognised by The Economic Times as one of India’s Top 29 Corporate Leaders in 2023, Smita is also a recipient of the ‘Woman Ahead’ award at ET Startup Awards 2022. Smita has been recognised as one of the top 100 female entrepreneurs who are building and shaping India.
Shantanu is an esteemed personality in the consumer business segment in India. Managing an array of consumer marketing functions for over two decades now, he currently offers his expertise to Crompton Greaves’ Consumer Business as the Executive Vice President and Managing Director. His immense experience, expert leadership, and management knowledge have expedited LEAD’s journey from an aspiring start-up to an organization that supports over 3500+ schools. He has been a board member of LEAD since 2017.
Shantanu had been on the path of excellence long before extending his proficiency to LEAD as a board member. He is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and holds the degree of Masters in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He has also served as the Managing Director of Procter & Gamble.
Sandeep is Founder & Managing Partner at Elevar Equity, a firm driven to work with early stage companies that foster economic development for low income communities. For over 25 years, Sandeep has been working in diverse areas – from providing formal financial services in emerging markets to guiding non-profit organisations in education, healthcare, and agriculture sectors. Sandeep strongly believes that LEAD can truly transform the Indian education landscape. He has been a board member of LEAD since 17th August 2017.
Sandeep has an integrated law and arts degree from the National Law School of India University (NLS). He established Unitus in India, and actively partnered and supported many leading microfinance institutions and banks in India during their formative years.
Sandeep is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of WestBridge Capital. He has over two decades of experience in both public and private sectors, serving as an investment advisor as well as a board member in several companies. Sandeep believes that LEAD’s innovative and focused approach holds great potential in making quality school education accessible for all. Sandeep has been a board member since mid 2020.
Sandeep holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, an MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois, where he was awarded the Abraham Lincoln Fellowship, and a B. Tech. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He has previously worked with Hindustan Unilever and The Boston Consulting Group and had also co-founded Sequoia Capital India Advisors Private Limited.
Harsh drives the day-to-day development process of all our applications, ensuring that LEAD is equipped with adept technological capabilities and that all our resources are used efficiently, profitably, and securely by all our stakeholders. Under his leadership, evaluation and implementation of new systems and infrastructure are never amiss. He works closely with the senior leadership to develop the company’s strategy to offer our solutions to every corner of the country.
Highly skilled in building scalable and high performance internet architecture, Harsh started off as a Software Developer at Lutron Electronics, USA, Harsh has held senior positions in technology teams across industries. He worked as Head of Technology at Edutech company MeritNation.com. Harsh has a Masters in Human-Computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
Ajay drives the design and development of products at LEAD for all users, i.e, teachers, students, parents, principals, academic coordinators and school owners. He ensures that the users have a seamless and delightful experience, while delivering the best education possible to the students.
Ajay comes with 16 years of experience in product management, entrepreneurship, data science and consulting. In his last role, he was the CEO and Founder of Boxx.ai, which was later acquired by Netcore. Prior to that, Ajay has worked in McKinsey, RedPill (later acquired by IBM) and Crayon. Ajay is an alumnus of IIT Bombay.
Deepak Hariharan is the new Head of Expansion at LEAD, India’s largest School EdTech company and the first unicorn in the segment.
As the Head of Expansion at LEAD, Deepak will further the organization’s vision to make excellent education accessible and affordable for every child, by transforming affordable private schools across India. He will play a pivotal role in driving forward the vision of LEAD – “to provide propulsive learning opportunities to over 26 million children by 2026.”
Prior to joining LEAD in mid-2022, Deepak has been a Business Leader, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Public Speaker and Mentor in his 15+ year experience:
Driven growth and scaleup for unicorns such as Zomato and Tata 1mg (2018-2022)
Founder and CEO of MentorYes, a student mentorship platform – his first venture into edtech (2015-17)
Business consultant with Feedback Infra (2008-2016)
TEDx speaker
Advisor & mentor to several youth / entrepreneurship platforms – including the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Ashoka University.
An alumnus of IIM Calcutta and NIT Calicut, Deepak grew up in Bangalore, and currently lives in Delhi with his family. He is an avid reader and dabbles with writing & painting when he can.
Saloni Sharma, the head of HR at LEAD Group, has 17 years of diverse HR experience working for unicorn startups and conglomerates. She oversaw business partnerships for more than 1000 workers, specialising in FMCG, and she was exceptionally strong in learning and development, talent acquisition, talent management, and compensation and benefits COE. Saloni’s people-centered, collaborative culture is fostered by her strategic leadership. Her dedication to professional growth and inclusive approach establish her as a respected figure in the HR industry. She continues to encourage innovation at LEAD Group, ensuring a thriving workforce aligned with the company’s success.
Arvind holds leadership experience across diverse sectors including Education (Vedantu), Logistics (BlackBuck), Jewelry (BlueStone), Urban Commute (TFS/Ola), Food Retail (McDonald’s), Telecom (Reliance Communications and Nokia), semi-durables (Asian Paints) and FMCG (Marico Limited), Arvind brings extensive executive level expertise spanning Sales, Marketing, Product Management, Strategy, Consumer and Business Insights, Operations and overall business P&L. Arvind holds a B. Tech. degree from IIT Bombay and is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta. With LEAD Group, Arvind will provide comprehensive direction to develop and implement LEAD’s growth strategy to serve more schools and students across India.
A Chartered Accountant by profession, Arpit joins LEAD Group where he will spearhead the finance and legal functions. In his previous stint at Marico Limited, he was the CFO – Digital Business and Head – Mergers & Acquisitions. Before Marico, Arpit held multiple leadership roles in
Finance at ITC Limited.
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LEAD is an integrated system of education that equips schools with innovative...
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