Shilen Saugunan is the CEO and founder of SS Consulting, a global advisory firm providing expertise on strategy, people, process, and technology to startups and SMEs. Through SS Consulting, Shilen offers high-potential startups mentoring, seed angel investments, and acceleration. Shilen was the lead investor and chief mentor of a successful fintech startup, Paymetry. A part of Paymetry’s equity was acquired by ICICI Bank recently. Before he founded SS Consulting, Shilen was the MD and CEO of Arbitron India. He joined the parent company, Arbitron Inc., as a senior software developer in 1999 and rose through the ranks quickly to the director of IT before coming to Kochi to set up the fully owned subsidiary. He played a key role in the success story of Arbitron at Infopark. Shilen also led the seamless merger and transition of Arbitron India to Nielsen and TCS after Nielsen acquired Arbitron in 2014.

Shilen holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from IIT and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from NIT Calicut. His first job was as an engineering scientist at ISRO for eight years. He now gives back to the scientific and IT community as a part of the board of directors at UL Cyberpark; regional council member of NASSCOM, Kerala; member of the board of governors for the Technology Business Incubator at NIT, Calicut; and as chairman for Malabar Innovation Zone, Kerala’s first accelerator with its own Native Angel fund, Malabar Angels. He operates out of Kochi and Kannur.