Dr. Mukesh Aghi serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the United States-India Strategic Partnership Forum and has extensive experience working with business and government leaders in the United States and India in the strengthening of ties between the two countries. Previously, he served as Chief Executive and Member of the Board at Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd., Chairman and CEO of the Asia-Pacific region at Steria, Inc. (India), and President of IBM India.

Aghi holds several degrees including an advanced management diploma from Harvard Business School, and a Ph.D. in international relations from Claremont Graduate University. He has been recognized by Esquire Magazine as a Global Leader and won many awards over the course of his professional career, including the JRD Tata Leadership Award.

Deepanjana Klein is the International Head of the Department for Contemporary Indian & Southeast Asian Art at Christie’s. Previous to this position she was an independent curator in New York City, where she curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary Indian art. 

Klein has taught art history, theory, and aesthetics at the Leicester School of Architecture in England and at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies in Mumbai. She regularly writes on contemporary Indian art for various journals, and was one of the five women chosen as the Power 2016: High-Wattage Women by Blouin Art & Auction.

Abhishek Poddar is a businessman, and a prominent collector and patron of the arts in India. 

Poddar is involved in various family group companies with diverse interests and serves as the Honorary Consul for Poland in Bangalore. He is also on the advisory committees of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bangalore, the Deccan Heritage Foundation and FIND (Fondation Inde-Europe de Nouveaux Dialogues or the India-Europe Foundation for New Dialogues), headquartered in Rome.

Nirupama Rao is the former Indian Foreign Secretary (2009 – 2011) and Ambassador of India to the United States of America (2011- 2013). Working in the Indian Foreign Service from 1973 to 2011, she has served in various capacities in several countries across the world, and was the first woman to be appointed as the Spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and Ambassador to China. 

Mrs. Rao has been a fellow at Harvard University and Brown University. In 2014 she received the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship, in connection with her ongoing book project on the diplomatic history of relations between India and China.

Dr. Gursharan S Sidhu holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Madras) and Stanford University. After a long career in academia and the technological sector (Apple Inc. and Microsoft), he now focuses on his passion for the arts of India. He and his wife collect  traditional and vernacular paintings from India and art from Mexico.

Dr. Sidhu was formerly Co-Chairman of the Board of the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer and Sackler Galleries, and is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Seattle Art Museum, as well as the Acquisitions Committee of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. 

Susan Whitehead is Vice Chair and life board member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. In addition to being a lifetime trustee of MIT, she currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Berklee College of Music, and on the boards of the Museum of Science in Boston and Horizons for Homeless Children. She is the former Chair of Horizons for Homeless Children, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, Bayview Correctional Facility in NYC, and Whitehead Institute.

Previously a trial attorney in Boston, Whitehead also has experience as an assistant district attorney in New York City and directed a clinical program at Brooklyn Law School. She has had a lifelong passion for the visual arts, particularly photography.