Microsoft appoints Bala Girisaballa as CEO of Accelerator

PUNE: Microsoft has appointed Bala Girisaballa as CEO-in-Residence at Microsoft Accelerator in India. He took charge of the Accelerator’s India operations, with effect from August 1, 2016. Microsoft also announced that Ravi Narayan, Director, will now assume the role of Global Director at Microsoft Accelerator. Prior to this, Girisaballa was Partner and Practice Head at Zinnov, working with multinational R&D companies.

Girisaballa will lead the Accelerator’s efforts in helping market ready entrepreneurs and startups scale up and become successful businesses through technology enablement and global go-to-market efforts. It also offers deep business advisory through different programs.

In his new role as Global Director, Narayan will help Microsoft Accelerator become market ready in eight locations around the world and accelerate these startups that have or will raise institutional funding from VCs. He will also focus on scaling the startup acceleration model through global partners.

Early last year, Microsoft Accelerator in India redesigned their programs to cater to market-ready startups. Since then, it has graduated three cohorts which include startups like iBot, CustomerXPs, Altizon, CloudCherry and Reverie Technologies. It has also formed partnerships with Temasek, TCS, Citi, Reliance Industries and other Multinational Corporates under its corporate engagement program CoInnovate, to help the startups in their go-to-market efforts and global expansion