Malabar Angel Network (MAN)

Member – Startup Evaluation Committee

March 2022 – Present

Malabar Angel Network (MAN) is Kerala’s first native angel network to create and nurture local startups and offers a local, early-stage funding ecosystem. MAN builds a deal pipeline, conducts various pitch sessions at regular intervals and investor advocacy programs and leads investors with due diligence and legal support also conducts regular investor education to attract and retain investors.

MAN also looks at frequent interactions with other regions’ angel networks and VCs, especially the empanelled fund of funds promoted by the Kerala Government’s Kerala Start-up Mission. MAN has existing tie-ups with India’s No one angel network, Indian Angel Network(IAN) and Native Angel Leads of Tamil Nadu.

As a member of MAN’s evaluation committee, Aswani over conducts due diligence on various startup companies. Her efforts include reviewing the investment pitches and shortlisting startups for detailed investment pitch sessions leading to investment decisions.

Skills: Startup evaluation · Angel Investing · Start-ups

TPConnects Technologies

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

2019 – Present

TPConnects is a new generation travel technology company provides an innovative cloud based travel booking and distribution platform for airlines and travel agencies. Aswani leads the in-house IT operations and oversees the company’s digital marketing strategy, finance, planning and execution of budget, administration, HR, security and facility operations. She is an integral part in both short term and long term strategic planning process to organizational restructuring for long-term profitability. She also strategically manages investments to increase revenue, raising funds for the organization and to build sustainable profit and has successfully decreased operational costs by over 60 per cent in less than a year.

Global Organizations

Aswani has also joined hands with various global organizations, investors and dignitaries to foster positive business and initiatives relations while successfully identified and trained over 100 entry-level staff members (including IT and admin) to prepare them for job requirements.

Travel Tech

In her present role as COO of a Travel Tech Company, she is focused on creating an inclusive environment to encourage women to join and more importantly strive to grow in these jobs by providing a high level of mentorship and guidance; evaluating performance; and forecasting operating budget needs.

Vythiri Village Resort

Head of IT and Brand PR Manager

2017 – Present

Vythiri Village Resort is a five-star classified property with most extensive inventory (350 rooms and conference space for up to 2000 pax) in Wayanad, Kerala with a unique focus on MICE tourism.  Aswani was part of the pre opening team, working under Mr NK Mohamed, the owner and Managing Director of the resort. In the run up to its opening, she led the resort’s PR, Branding, Marketing, Events and IT operations. She also worked closely with their sister resort’s the Kadavu Resort and Oriental Institute of Hotel management.

As Head of IT, Aswani oversaw business operational continuity (online and offline) with full responsibility for 100 per cent uptime, full data backup, recovery and system redundancy. She implemented new innovative technologies that allowed for business productivity or expense reduction and was successful in implementing competitive bids for various operating spends. She also oversaw the deployment, configuration and maintenance of LAN systems, telecommunications, IT system security, anti-virus and data protection software, various network devices and all electronic equipment.

IT Projects

Aswani managed an in-house IT team including content development, e-commerce systems, booking engine, reservation department, payment gateways and other web based services oversaw public relations activities and communications including press releases, social media, company literature, editorial calendars, articles, announcements and media kits, maintained a consistent PR/branding for the property (both online and offline) and successfully executed social media campaigns and SEO technics to boost online presence.

Team Management

Under her guidance, the brand built a favourable image among visitors, staffs, in the industry and has risen in status as much sought destination for wellness tourism in Wayanad, Kerala. She also oversaw community-led efforts and execution of those strategies to improve market presence. She worked closely with various travel trade shows to represent the property.

Kerala Startup Mission

Incubatee at Kerala Startup Mission

2017 – Present

Aswani’s passion for technology led her to co-found a Tech Development company that scaled and served satisfied customers from across the world. The company was listed and recognized as one of the Top100 Startups from Kerala. The company was also recognized under the ‘Startup India, Standup India Program’ and got incubated in Kerala IT Mission with support from the Kerala Government. 

Flamboya Media LLP

Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer

2013 – Present

Flamboya media is a young branding firm with a different approach and philosophy towards work. Flamboya was founded in 2013 and have since completed various projects for clients around the world ranging from brand identity to web branding to video advertising. Their commitment towards work can be summed up by their tag line “as long as there’s space for us to be creative.”

Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation

Head of Digital Marketing, Development and PR

2012 – 2016

Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (KINFRA) is a government agency under the government of the Indian state of Kerala that undertakes the development of industrial estates to nurture industrialization in the state. 

Aswani was responsible for architecting and defining the front-end framework to solve complex designs and interactions as well as oversaw the creation of all coded front-end deliverables.

She was also led the mentorship and guidance for the technical team members in all project activities on multiple small to medium sized projects or one large project. She proactively participated in developing supporting proposal materials for projects, scoping and planning work, writing technical documentation (admin guides), white papers, presentations as well as contributed to internal processes. In her role, she was able to shift between a creative and a technical focus depending on the project need and/or the type of project while identifying new opportunities and developing new ideas for clients. 

Team Lead

She led and managed a large team of Front-end Developers and client developers, lead recruiting of new Front-end employees, monitored the progress of those tasks and feedback to Project Managers (PMs), Account Managers (AMs) and other non-dev team members. She also responsible for auditing of source code to ensure code-quality.

Head of Digital Marketing & PR

Aswani also led and executed digital brand marketing campaigns for the company’s different web solutions in the channels of SEM and SEO. She also oversaw the digital marketing initiatives including search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, campaign landing page development, retargeting and marketing automation.