About

Hat (Harish Anand Thilakan condensed) is our Founder and Managing Director

If there’s a guy who can convince an Eskimo to buy a refrigerator, it’s Hat. His journey as an entrepreneur began fourteen years ago, while he was still in school. When his parents would have preferred him to be studying. He says he learnt by trial and error, but we think it’s more than that.

Hat says he picked up the art of selling through trial and error.  We beg to differ. We believe Harish’s marketing success is the result of good instincts married with a true passion about all things digital, an infectious curiosity about what’s happening in the field, and a talent for catching on quickly.

Clients love Harish. They know he not only talks a great spiel, but also puts his work where his mouth is. His typical work-schedule has him jetting off to Dubai, London and the US at the drop of a hat—no pun intended. As intense and focussed at work as he is, Hat throws a mean party, knows how to have fun, and has a wicked sense of humour. No one at Influx is surprised when he sits down next to that shy intern, the interactive designer or a serious .NET developer, and continues to work, coming up with humorous asides that have people cracking up with laughter.

And – boy! – does he know exactly what each one in any of our offices is doing! He can convince even the most unconvinced to give of his productive best.

That’s Hat. He drives. He delivers.

Dodo (Daniel Anandraj Garnipudi yada yada) is our Chief Operating Officer.

Though his moniker might suggest otherwise, Dodo’s no slouch — he runs a tight ship here, ensuring that we deliver projects on time, in scope, and of exceptional quality.

Armed with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and an MBA, Dodo worked his way up from a call-center guy to setting up and overseeing the work of service/support, implementation, and consultancy teams for product development and software project-delivery.

To be pals with Daniel you have to be up-front and open. Even about stuff you’ve messed up. He’ll tell you it is easier cleaning up this c*** than deal with the fallout of lack of honesty and transparency.

An active auto-enthusiast, Daniel has raced in the Enfield class national championships in the early 2000s, and is now actively involved in teaching like-minded enthusiasts as an instructor at TWO in association with Overdrive magazine. He collects motorcycles and has quite a stable of them, ranging from Enfields and Jawas, to a BMW and an R6. You think that’s all? Wait. He’s the owner of the Madras Bulls Motorcycling Club and is president of the nationwide group of Enfield clubs — pan India, BOBMC. That’s Brotherhood of Bulleteers Motorcycling Consortium, in case you didn’t know.

Long motorcycle rides or hanging out at the track school are how Daniel busts the stress of dealing with us all week long. He’s taken himself and his motorcycle off to ride through parts of Europe, the UK, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. We’re still wondering what kind of stress he was busting at that time. But we’ll never have a problem deciding what to give Daniel for his next birthday. Our design-team is designing a special helmet for when the wanderlust hits him next.

A seasoned professional in the movie theatre exhibition business with a background in tech, Carrie has sold POS software, digital signage, IVR systems, websites, and mobile apps most of her life! With a passion and resulting focus on ticketing and increasing conversion rates through exceptional platforms and various marketing channels, she’s worked with cinema industry leaders such as Jackroe, RTS and The Box Office Company, before making the move to Influx. Highly skilled in sales, strategic partnerships and fostering relationships with exhibitors, Carrie loves developing IT solutions to fill their business needs.

Here’s the blog post Hat wrote welcoming The Shark to Influx – we promise, you’ll enjoy reading it!

Jesudhas Christhdas is Senior Vice President – Technology at Influx.

A motivated and organized software professional, Jesu brings to the table over 20 years’ experience that spans establishing, implementing and managing technical processes for customer support and project delivery. Formerly at ADP, he is an efficient team-builder, motivator and mediator, adept at navigating teams through changing business environments. His career has seen him successfully delivering software products and projects as a systems architect, consultant and entrepreneur.

A keen audiophile, Jesu lovingly cares for his sound systems and his growing collection of vinyl. He also enjoys travel, but is not your typical tourist, preferring the countryside and taking in the sights at a leisurely pace. Born and raised in Chennai, he is a devoted family-man, a fan of football (soccer) and a confessed foodie who loves to barbecue.

Gopinath Premnath is Director — Finance at Influx.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce and is also an ACCA-certified chartered accountant.

A sports-technology enthusiast, Gopi also went on to acquire an MBA in sports management. He has played badminton at the national level in four tournaments and has been president of Killara Cricket Club in Sydney and New South Wales, Australia.

When not crunching numbers here at Influx, you’d likely find him pumping iron in the gym that, conveniently for him, is located one floor below our Chennai office. Or playing doting parent to his dogs, Keerai and Penne.

Mahesh Shankar is our Technology Advisor.

Nagarajan Manimaran is Head of Technology at Influx.

He holds master’s degrees in software engineering as well as business administration. As the go-to person for all technology-related queries and issues for the various brands Influx handles, Naga’s work involves planning various stages of project development, and monitoring and controlling progress.

Naga also manages and mentors a dedicated team of software professionals through whom he provides technical support and maintenance for the websites, apps and kiosks we build. His experience and knowledge of digital technology for the cinema domain is extensive.

If there’s a contest on who can walk the longest distance, it’s very likely Naga will give you a walk for your money. When he isn’t talking Influx and Cinema, our Head of Tech is discussing politics, cricket, and good food.

Jose Joseph is our Head of Project Management.

With over fifteen years’ experience in the digital production industry, Jose comes with a bachelor’s degree in visual communications and is a Certified Usability Analyst from Human Factors International.

At Influx, he is responsible for overseeing projects and ensuring they are per client-requirements and delivered on time, every time. Something he does with ease, given that he has managed people and processes and completed over 100 projects to satisfaction.

Deeply spiritual, Jose values his time with his family and has come to realise that his 7-year old daughter, Anna, pretty much calls all the shots at home. At work, he’s been known to surprise people with his sudden spurts of humour. As someone who is, by nature, congenial and unobtrusive, Jose has been mistaken by a few for a pushover. To their detriment. They quickly realise that there’s no messing with this guy who is quite a stickler for perfection. Having delivered projects across desktop, web and mobile applications on multiple platforms, it’s hard to pull a fast one with Jose.

Elampooranan is Quality Assurance Manager at Influx.

He has a B.E. in electronics and electrical engineering and over 11 years experience in software testing. Elam has built a strong team and groomed his quality-testing associates to be methodical and conscious about what the end-user will expect.

In ensuring the quality of the product, Elam will not compromise. It isn’t uncommon to see him in intense discussions with our devs when he is convincing them of where a bug is and why it has to be fixed.

As focussed as he is at work, you’ll also find Elam in the thick of things at every Influx event where he organises activities, does mimicry and generally has everyone in splits. An ardent Rajinikanth fan, he excels at imitating the superstar’s voice and dialogue-delivery.

Elam believes in striking a comfortable work-life balance and enjoys the time he spends with his son in “Dad’s Lab”, where the duo can be found pottering with DIY ideas. Elam enjoys travel and has been known to head off to the Himalayas for short trekking expeditions. We don’t mind, just so long as we know he will be back to assure quality and not decide to renounce the world and stay put in the mountains.

Karthik Arumugam is our Head of Design.

We hold our collective breath while Karthik and his team produce the design for any project we work on. So what’s his mojo?

He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and dual master’s degrees—one in electronic media, and the other in communication, advertising and public relations.Over 7 years experience in the print and digital marketing space, sound knowledge of technology, keeping abreast of the latest trends in the field, and the talent to manage teams have given Karthik the edge.

Karthik is passionate about cinema and loves watching reruns of old films and will hold forth quite authoritatively about them. What’s his favourite genre? Give him anything from suspense thrillers to realistic fiction, a Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino, Alfred Hitchcock or Balu Mahendra film and you’ll have a happy man.

Knowing how to design is not rocket science; he believes the crux is in understanding what a client wants and serving it up like fine cuisine. He makes sure his team enjoys their work and that’s how he gets them to deliver on time. And, as long his designers delivers on time, Karthik is fine with them chatting up their girlfriend or snoozing in between. Pretty cool that way, huh?

What does Karthik do when he isn’t at Influx? We’ll tell you. The weekends and holidays are reserved exclusively for his family, especially his infant daughter. We try not to bug him with work on the weekends. Not always possible, you know… So we just pass the message to his daughter; she handles him for us.

Nagendra Boopathy is our Lead Software Engineer specialising in the MS Framework.

He has a master’s degree in computer applications, over 13 years experience in the IT field and plays a key role in Influx’s design and development of cinema websites and kiosk-based applications, and Vista and payment gateway integration.

Some of us at Influx have been complaining about this crick in the neck we’ve got. Only to be expected because we have to look up to Boopathy. At 6’ 4”, he is easily the tallest guy we have here. Some think he bears a resemblance to Calaway, but no, he’s not a wrestler. He’s this very amiable guy with a winsome smile, always eager to learn more.

People—especially the non-technical types—love going to Boopathy when they need to understand something technical. Why? Because he does not patronise them or dumb it down; he actually uses the right technical terms to make even the slowest of us understand and feel good to know we have a brain.

What are Boopathy’s plans for the future? He wants to become an entrepreneur and travel the world with his wife.

Boopathy loves music and movies; he says they make him feel transported into a different world. Hello, Earth to Boopathy…. Come back, work on our next cinema website awaits you.

Mohana Srinivas AC leads our team of iOS mobile application developers. He has a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering and 5+ years experience in mobile app development.

You are unlikely to see Mohan hot and bothered about anything. Very cool and composed—that’s his nature and what he believes helps him work well under pressure. Passionate about learning what’s new in technology, Mohan is a full-fledged Apple fan and has built applications for large brands like Lakme and Lenskart.

An avid moviegoer and Christopher Nolan fan, likes to take a long trip annually. Interestingly, Mohan also made a successful foray into entrepreneurship prior to joining Influx.