I. C. Shah - Founder and Chairman

I.C.Shah is a Founder, President and CEO of ICS Telecom Inc. – a leading provider of voice and data network services in Western New York. Mr. Shah is a  graduate of Michigan State University and a very prominent community leader. He currently serves on the Boards of Rochester Broadway Theatre League, Seniors First and Kirkhaven Nursing Home and the Chairman-elect of the Board of Directors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Rochester. In the past he has served on the Boards of Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, Compeer, Kidney Foundation ,  Rochester Area Community Foundation etc. Mr. Shah is a well respected philanthropist and a fundraiser. He has raised millions of dollars for the non-profit organizations in Rochester. For his  community service, Mr. Shah has been recognized by many  organizations such as Mental Health Association, Compeer,  Kidney Foundation,  Association of Indians in America- Genesee Valley Chapter, just to name few. He has been honored as Small Business Person of the Year by the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, Urban league of Rochester and Small Business Administration. He was also honored as one of the Outstanding Asian Americans of New York State by Governor Mario Cuomo.Mr. Shah also received the prestigious Philanthropy Award from the Rochester Area Community Foundation, and most recently Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University.Mr. Shah has a passion for his community and the causes involving children and the disadvantaged. He has used his creativity, entrepreneurship and philanthropy to help hundreds of organizations in our community. When he gets on the Board of any organization, he serves with the same passion and enthusiasm as his own business. He has a passionate commitment to serve his adopted community which has accepted him and his family and made him feel at home.

Seema Ali

Kamesh Nagarajan

A native of New York, Kamesh graduated from Vassar College with his Bachelor of Arts in Economics.  He subsequently graduated, with honors, from the Syracuse University College of Law with his Juris Doctorate degree. Kamesh holds the following licenses: New York State Bar Certification, Series 7-General Securities, Series 63-Uniform State Registration, Series 65-Investment Advisory Agent Registration, Insurance and Annuities License for the State of New York and Financial Planning Specialist designation.   Kamesh is a Second Vice President – Wealth Management at Smith Barney and a Senior Investment Management Specialist. In addition, Kamesh serves on the Board of Directors of The Rochester Area Community Foundation, a local community foundation that manages over $200 million in community assets and, as a member of the Corporate Advisory Councel of Special Olympics Genesee Region.  In 2002,  The Rochester Business Journal recognized Kamesh as one of its 40 Under 40 Award recipients.  He has always been active in the Rochester community and also has served in many organizations in the Indian Community in Rochester.   Kamesh is married and he and his wife, Ami, live in Brighton.

Amit Chitre

Amit Chitre is the Director of Communications for the American Heart Association, Rochester Division. 

Amit graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in broadcast communications, and aspirations to become a television news reporter.  He started his career in small television markets, first reporting for the CBS affiliate in Clarksburg, WV and then moving on to the NBC affiliate in Traverse City, MI. Amit came to Rochester, NY to report for the CBS affiliate in 1998, and was later promoted to weekend anchor.

Amit’s time in television brought about many interesting experiences including one-on-one interviews with prominent politicians like Gov. George Pataki and Sen. Hillary Clinton, to the coverage of life-changing events like a visit from Pope John Paul II and the attacks of September 11^th.  But after many years “on camera”, Amit opted for a more stable career in public relations.  After a year as a PR Senior Account Executive with the nationally recognized agency Buck & Pulleyn, the American Heart Association recruited Amit for its Director of Communications position.  He has earned multiple PRism awards for his work in public relations.

Amit has long had an interest in politics, public-policy, and the role of Indian-Americans in those arenas.  He was an original staff writer for ONward, the first nationally distributed magazine created for and by second-generation Indians in the U.S.  He has participated in, and moderated, numerous panel discussions about politics, policy and the Indian community. Amit believes the Development of Indo-American Leaders (DIAL) program is a concept long overdue.

Amit lives in Victor, NY with his wife Mona and son Rohan.

Sanjay Hiranandani

Sanjay Hiranandani has served as Vice President of Engineering at PAETEC Communications since September of 1999. He leads efforts to engineer PAETEC's next-generation voice over IP network and infrastructure, prior to which he led efforts to deploy PAETEC's multi-service backbone network, to manage our data and Internet-access product and service development, and to converge our enhanced voice and data services onto a single network.  The infrastructure at PAETEC that Sanjay and his team are responsible for engineering supports one of the fastest-growing portions of PAETEC’s  revenue base since its inception in 1999.

Before joining PAETEC, Sanjay was employed as Vice President for Advanced Technologies at TeleBeam, Inc., a regional Integrated Communications Provider headquartered in State College, Pennsylvania. Prior to TeleBeam, he served as a lead network architect at Cornell University, where he also previously received his Bachelor of Arts degree.

In May of 2003, Sanjay drove in the Car & Driver Magazine sponsored "Cannonball One Lap of America" race – a grueling 7-day, 5000-mile cross country event, encompassing several challenging racetracks and featuring high adrenaline combined with little sleep. In his rookie year in this event, Sanjay used it to promote awareness and raise over $10,000 for the Mary M. Gooley Hemophilia Center, for which he serves on the Board of Directors. He also serves as the Vice President of the Cornell Alumni Association of Greater Rochester, is active in fundraising events for a number of other charitable organizations, and is a member of the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Society and Young Leaders Club. In 2002, Sanjay received the Rochester Business Journal’s prestigious “Forty Under 40” award. Sanjay has previously served on the Board's of several not for-profit organizations, including the United Way of Centre County, PA, and the American Cancer Society.

Mridula Nair

Mridula Nair is a Senior Research Scientist and Project Leader in the Printing Solutions Science and Technology Center of Kodak’s Research Laboratories.  She has over 20 years of R&D experience at Kodak with increasingly responsible positions in Research ranging from, Research Scientist to Project Manager for product commercialization.  She has over 60 US Patents and several publications.  

Nair was a member of the board of directors for APA-HiP, a non-profit organization for documenting the oral histories of people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in Rochester and a founding board member of APEX (Asia Pacific-Islander Exchange), a Kodak Employee network 

In addition, she has served as a guest lecturer at various schools and colleges, in the US and in India and is an active supporter of a local Hindu Temple.

She is multilingual, has a great interest in comparative religion and etymology, and is a performer level Indian Classical dancer.

Born in Kerala, India, she earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry, with the highest honor, from the University of Madras; her master's from the Indian Institute of Technology; and her Ph.D. from the Ohio State University. She was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Columbia University.  She resides in Penfield, NY with her husband Cumar Sreekumar.  They have one son who resides in New York City.

Ram Shrivastava

Ram Shrivastava is president and CEO of Larsen Engineers, a Consulting Engineering firm based in Rochester NY. Ram is a professional Engineer with 37 Years of environmental engineering experience in Environmental protection and sustainable green design. Ram has lived in Rochester since 1969 with his wife and has two sons who are now working in New York City.

Ram served as a Board member of India Community Center for over 12 years and chaired the Building committee at the time of purchase and establishment of the current ICC facilities. Ram is currently serving as Chairperson of The Board of Directors of Center for Environmental Information (CEI) and is member of the Redwings Board of Directors. Ram is a director of Brighton Rotary club and Chairs the water and environment committee for Rotary district covering the Finger Lakes region. Ram has also been teaching the third grade as volunteer with the junior achievement of Rochester.

Deepak Seth

Deepak Seth has been a resident of the Rochester area since 1999. He has lived in  Rajasthan, UP, Vietnam, Tanzania, Delhi and some other esoteric places. He is an Industrial Engineer (IIT, Roorkee 1983-87)  and an MBA (IIM Calcutta, 1987-89). He has been working in  varying capacities for Bausch and Lomb in India, Hong Kong and the US since 1994. He is  active in community affairs  and is currently Chairperson of the South Asian Employee Network at Bausch & Lomb. He is also the Past President of Jain Society of Rochester. He has contributed articles on management and current affairs issues to leading publications. His wife, Anupa is a Resident at Park Ridge Hospital   and their children  Divya and Ishir  are attending Brighton schools.

Alka Phatak

Alka Phatak has been a resident of the Rochester area for twenty four years.   She is a registered nurse by training and works on a per diem basis at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Her husband, Prad, is a physician and is Director of Cancer Services at Rochester General Hospital. She has enjoyed raising three children and has volunteered extensively in the Pittsford School programs for over fourteen years.  In 2005, she was elected to serve for a three year term on the Pittsford Board of Education..  Alka is also a volunteer with Meals on Wheels for the past eight years and has been a Hindu heritage teacher and librarian at the local temple for five years.  Along with her family, she has had the pleasure of raising and training a puppy for the Upstate Guide Dog Association. Alka has enjoyed the supportive and friendly environment in the community that has grown to be home for her and her family; she cherishes the opportunity to give back what she can in the form of these volunteer activities.