Mrinal Desai

Current

• Co-Founder and VP - Sales and Business Development at CrossLoop, Inc

Past

• Business Development Manager at LinkedIn
• Global Account Manager at Sprint
• Solutions Manager - Distribution Services Group at Portland General Electric

• Business Development - Employee#1 at HiWi5
• CEO at Vocationally Challenged, Inc!
• Marketing Consultant at PLANAR SYSTEMS INC.,
• Lead Consultant (MBA Thesis) at Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Business Development Manager at TATA ELXSI LTD.

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Education

• Monterey Institute of International Studies
• Birla Institute of Technology
• La Martiniere, Kolkata, India

Recommended

22 people have recommended Mrinal

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Mrinal Desai’s Summary

Startup professional with broad experience in all aspects of product strategy, marketing, distribution and new business development in consumer Internet companies focused in the social networking and media space

Mrinal Desai’s Experience

• Co-Founder and VP - Sales and Business Development

  CrossLoop, Inc

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  2006 — Present (3 years )

  CrossLoop enables anyone to get computer services easily:
  
  1) Software: It provides a very popular, free, grandma-friendly and secure desktop sharing software.
  Use of it is free for use in your personal and business social network - personal and commercial use.
  
  2) People: It also provides the largest network of Computer Support people, across 130 countries, who can help with anything on Windows to Quicken to online video or to sell on eBay
  
  CrossLoop is funded by El Dorado Ventures and more recently Venrock, who led the Series B venture round.
  
  CrossLoop reviewed by Walt Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal: http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20080924/with-crossloop-users-can-get-help-from-techie-friend/

• Business Development Manager

  LinkedIn

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  2004 — 2006 (2 years )

• Global Account Manager

  Sprint

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; FON; Telecommunications industry)

  July 2004 — November 2004 (5 months)

• Solutions Manager - Distribution Services Group

  Portland General Electric

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Utilities industry)

  October 2003 — April 2004 (7 months)

• Business Development - Employee#1

  HiWi5

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  April 2003 — October 2003 (7 months)

  A wireless startup building a new consumer service in the mobile VoIP space working closely with the Texas Pacific Group

• CEO

  Vocationally Challenged, Inc!

  (Internet industry)

  June 2001 — October 2003 (2 years 5 months)

  Sounded better than a "consultant" but a lot happened to me during this downturn for me and it was one of the best learning I have ever had in my professional life. I built a network of senior executives, angel investors and venture capitalists built on fundamentals of trusted mentoring and mutual professional development
  
  - Initiated long term relationships and built a network of mentors
  - Created business development opportunities for startups by collaborating at the senior executive level
  - Collaborated with senior executives and entrepreneurs at companies, such as Plaxo, Shop.com, on market intelligence and product development
  - Outsourced and coordinated software development projects off-shore to System Integrators (SI)
  - Aligned entrepreneurs with Venture Capital firms and Angel Investors
  - Learned job searching well enough to be a guest speaker today (2005-2007) at many job-seekers networking groups
  
  Featured in The Wall Street Journal - Overcoming Setbacks:
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124493611089912831.html
  Interviewed on TechRepublic (a CNET co.):
  http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=1310

• Marketing Consultant

  PLANAR SYSTEMS INC.,

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; PLNR; Computer Hardware industry)

  January 2002 — May 2002 (5 months)

• Lead Consultant (MBA Thesis)

  Cisco Systems, Inc.

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; CSCO; Telecommunications industry)

  September 2000 — February 2001 (6 months)

• Business Development Manager

  TATA ELXSI LTD.

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; TTEX.BO; Information Technology and Services industry)

  March 1996 — August 1999 (3 years 6 months)

  A premiere enterprise system integrator and services subsidiary of the $10 billion TATA group.
  
  Penetrated local markets with partners such as SGI, HP, IBM, Sun, PTC, Autodesk, EDS, Cisco, 3Com

Additional Information

Mrinal Desai’s Interests:

People and behavioral psychology, new technology and value creation, creativity, leadership and business, learning, reading and knowledge management, life, snowboarding, dancing, racquetball, tennis, Jedi powers, social media