ADARSH K. ARORA

CEO, Athena Security; CEO and co-founder, Lisle Technology Partners

Adarsh is the CEO of Athena Security and the CEO and co-founder of Lisle Technology Partners. Athena Security automates audits of network infrastructure against security best practices and compliance controls. LisleTech provides software product development services and a unique equity-based model for early stage start-up companies. Its reputation for quality services to entrepreneurial companies has led LisleTech to work with the portfolio companies of numerous Chicago and Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Adarsh is also active in the venture capital community, and he is a partner in the Idealflow Angel Fund, where he reviews, advises and invests in software and internet-based start-up companies.

Prior to LisleTech, Adarsh has created, managed and nurtured two successful start-ups (Peritus Software Services and Vista Technologies) to maturity, including an IPO that created a $500 million market capitalization. He has been responsible for developing and managing offshore development teams for the last eight years spanning two companies. Adarsh is active on the Board of Advisors of several technology start-up companies, Chicago Entrepreneurial Center and Illinois Institute of Technology's Rice Campus. He is an elected member of the Economic Club of Chicago and until recently on the Board Director of AccelChip Corporation. Adarsh is a frequent speaker for entrepreneurial events offered by the Midwest Entrepreneurs Forum, the Technology Executives Club, the Illinois Technology Enterprise Corporation, Chicago Entrepreneurial Center, Kellogg Business School of management of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Graduate Business School, among others. As a member of the Chicago Mayor’s Council of Technology Advisors, Adarsh is often invited to help them understand the issues involved in offshore outsourcing. He is also the recipient of the 2004 Chicago Software Association's Annual City Lights Award.

Adarsh is the President and a Charter Member of TiE Midwest - TiE was founded in the Silicon Valley and it is a global organization established to guide and mentor entrepreneurs. Before launching his entrepreneurial career, Adarsh was a Program Director at the Gould Research Center, where he led multiple teams researching and prototyping ideas in the Visual Programming area. Adarsh was instrumental in winning several million dollars from the Department of Defense for these projects, and the resulting research was directly responsible for the formation and success of his first entrepreneurial venture, Vista Technologies. In 1998 Senators Paul Simon and Alan Dixon recognized Adarsh for his innovative work in software systems.

Adarsh obtained his Ph.D in computer Science from Northwestern University. He has published widely in scholarly journals, won best paper awards. Many of his research contributions relating to Relational Database Technology are widely quoted in standard textbooks.