Krishna Handa is a graduate in Biotechnology and Bio-chemistry, Law, and an MBA from Suffolk University, Boston, USA. She is a serial ideator and entrepreneur. In 2005, she founded Dorizoe Lifesciences Limited, an Ahmedabad, India-based global Contract Research and Development Organization. As Dorizoe achieved scale and profitability, she handed it over to a professional team to manage and went on to start ‘ello’, a kids apparel and lifestyle products company. After that, she started Claris Capital - a venture capital and angel investing arm of Claris Group. She drives the Group’s CSR activities through Brihati Foundation. Krishna likes to focus on future ideas and sustainability as her topics of interest and excellence. She has to her credit, partnering with Gujarat University to do one of Gujarat’s first start-up conferences for university students. She is also actively involved in restoring the old city of Ahmedabad.
Arjun Handa is the Vice Chairman and MD of Claris Group. He is an MBA from Northeastern University, Boston, USA, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting from H. L. College of Commerce, Ahmedabad. He likes to focus on people, entrepreneurship, and management quality. He would like to add value to the lives of people in the world through his businesses and investments and contribute to the society by creating opportunities for people in the fields of sports and culture.
Arjun took Claris in 2007 from a small family business and grew it into a global specialty injectables company in the pharmaceutical industry generating a value of over a billion dollars and generating significant value for shareholders. He has had the experience of doing a private equity infusion, an IPO, 3 strategic deals including a JV, and then finally a de listing of Claris. All his strategic deals of value creation have been with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Under Arjun’s leadership, Claris received 8 times in a row the ‘Great Place to Work Award’, was featured numerous times in Fortune India ‘The Next 500’, Business Standard ‘BS 1000’, Inc. India Innovative 100 List, and many more. He has been recognized for his entrepreneurial and leadership qualities by The Economic Times ‘Promising Entrepreneurs of India’ (2016), ‘Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award 2016’ in ‘Most Promising’ category by Enterprise Asia, to name a few. He is now focusing on building Abellon waste to energy that does waste management, plastic recycling and focuses on circularity. As part of his gratitude, he invests and mentor entrepreneurs and startups to take India forward. Apart from work, Arjun likes to read books on entrepreneurship and management, is a car & technology freak, and holds a deep interest in world music. He was also a professional football player.