Management Team

Vikas Joshi: Founder, Chairman and Managing Director

Vikas Joshi founded the Harbinger Group, where he serves as the Chairman and Managing Director, in 1990. Today the group is known for its innovative software products, and has established a market presence in over thirty countries around the world.

Vikas Joshi’s leadership at Harbinger has resulted in groundbreaking product innovations in the e-learning industry. One of his patent-pending inventions led to Raptivity, the world’s first rapid interactivity builder, which makes learning interactive, engaging and fun. Other products propelled by his vision include Elicitus, the award-winning e-learning authoring tool, and the Offline Content Player, a scalable platform for offline e-learning.

Under his leadership, Harbinger has also emerged as a trusted provider of software services to a wide range of technology companies ranging from Microsoft to several Silicon Valley start-ups.

Vikas is a frequent speaker at industry events, and is recognized as a thought leader in e-learning technology and its role in knowledge management. He has written a book titled Strategic e-Learning Mantras, which distils the best practices in corporate eLearning into a handy guide. He actively advises and speaks at local colleges and other organizations.

After IIT Bombay, where he completed his B.Tech, Vikas got his MS from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY on a Graduate Fellowship, working on artificial intelligence. He lives in Pune, India and hangs out in the Silicon Valley a few months every year. In his spare time, an occasional book provides him diversion from high tech entrepreneurship, unless the book also happens to be on the same subject.

Swati Ketkar, Executive Director

Swati is a founder member of the Harbinger Group. Since 1990, she has held various positions in the organization. As Executive Director, Swati has spearheaded the rapid growth of Harbinger Systems into a global provider of software services.

Swati has led key efforts towards business growth through customer development across the world. As a result of these efforts, Harbinger Systems has established a sound customer base. With a view to market potential, Swati led the expansion of Harbinger Systems’ Redmond (WA) US headquarters and established its Santa Clara (CA) satellite office.

Swati believes in going that extra mile to give value to customers and delivering beyond their expectations. This mantra, which has helped Harbinger Systems build marquee customers such as Microsoft and Cisco, has also helped build enduring relationships with several smaller companies and technology startups.

Earlier in her career at Harbinger, Swati effectively managed on-site consulting assignments for AT&T, Honeywell and Citibank.

In her successful professional journey, Swati has given a special emphasis to cadre building. She has been passionate about building highly motivated and effective teams, to carry the baton to a winning finish. She has achieved this by creating an environment that is nurturing and supportive to taking challenges for high level of performance benchmark. The Institution of Engineers (India) honored Swati in the year 2003 with the Woman Entrepreneur award, commemorating Leelawati Mehendale.

Swati holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science, Pune University, India. She has been a meritorious student throughout her academic career.

Shrikant Pattathil, Vice President, Technology Services

Shrikant Pattathil has played an active role in the growth of Harbinger Systems since 1998, when he joined the company as a software engineer. In the years that followed, Shrikant has been instrumental in designing technology solutions for a variety of customers. His solutions have ranged from development frameworks, data architectures, schema designs to test strategies for applications for thin-client, rich-client and desktop. Teams at Harbinger have implemented these solutions using technologies such as .Net, Java and Flash. To customers and to his team, Shrikant has been a source of up-to-date knowledge of shifting technology paradigms such as Web 2.0 and SaaS.

In the course of his tenure, Shrikant has held key positions including Project Leader, On-Site Coordinator and Lead Manager R&D. He has worked out of Harbinger’s offices in Redmond, WA for 2 years and has also completed several on-site customer consultations across the US. Customers value his ingenuity and innovation in designing sound technical approaches to business problems.

Shrikant’s contribution in e-learning specifications has been recognized by the Aviation Industry CBT Committee, where he is a frequent speaker. He has also architected the Offline Content Player, a unique product that enables e-learning for users that need to cope with limited connectivity. Organizations such as Northwest Airlines and Bristol Myers Squibb are using this solution to enable offline learning.

Shrikant holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering. He lives in Pune with his wife, and enjoys a variety of outdoor sports.