The DeSai Group - Our team

Jatin DeSai
CEO, Co-Founder

Jatin is a seasoned business executive, strategic advisor, and a coach for senior leadership teams. Jatin has extensive field experience in the areas of strategy alignment, corporate innovation, talent management, global competency development, culture transformation, and information technology.

Jatin has been active in leadership and operating roles since 1983 when he co-founded The DeSai Group with his father.

Jatin has written papers, regularly speaks at conferences, lectures at colleges and universities, and delivers educational workshops on Strategic Alignment for Executive Teams, Future Trends, Enterprise Innovation, Enterprise Learning, Organizational Effectiveness, Values and Leadership, Living with Human Values, and Spirituality in the Workplace.
Learn More

Fal Patel
CFO, Co-Founder

Fal has acted as Co-Founder and CFO of DeSai Group since 1983. She is directly involved in all the financial, maintenance, and employee benefit matters of the company. Through these varied roles, she provides the essential elements that allow the company to operate smoothly.

Fal´s professional, no-nonsense approach guides the management of the company assets. Ongoing research, discovery, and negotiations assure the best acquisitions and allocations.

Dan Browne
Vice President - Innovation

Dan has been building relationships inside Corporate America to help foster innovation, learning and development for over 20 years. Leadership, Management and Customer Facing teams have grown dramatically through the coaching and guidance Dan provides. Dan's first 15 years were spent consulting with organizations from Not-for-Profit to Fortune 10 organizations on the use of technology to innovate their products, services and business models. The last 5 years have been spent with leadership teams and managers at all levels focused on climate and culture work to integrate innovation into daily business.

Dan's style and belief in serving others has helped him to create many long lasting partnerships with vendors and clients. Dan has a unique skill to see the big picture and create symphony among workgroups, partners and clients.

Outside the office, you may recognize Dan as Vice Chair of Our piece of the Pie, a leading youth development agency, Helping Hartford Youth become Successful Adults. Some days you may find Dan coaching kids in Soccer, Baseball/Softball, Lacrosse, or Hockey. Each of these activities has enabled him to develop knowledge and skills that guide leadership, teamwork and innovation in Business.

Najeeb Ahmad
Vice President - Client Development

Najeeb Ahmad is a seasoned Human Resources executive whose career has spanned twenty years in various industries, business models, and geographies. He has held senior positions with companies ranging in size from 120 employees to more than 50,000, from privately held to Fortune 100. He has consistently coupled his consultation to all levels of management, from first-line supervisors to the C-Suite, with deep experience in strategy, talent management, staffing, leadership coaching, organizational development, team effectiveness, group facilitation and change management. Through rapid organizational growth, downsizings, restructurings, and other business transformations, Najeeb has developed hands-on expertise that couples sound theory and research with practical applications that work.

Najeeb most recently served as Partner, Human Resources at Rosetta, a fast-growing marketing strategy and interactive agency. Prior to that, he led Human Resources at MediaVest, a subsidiary of Publicis. At Bristol-Myers Squibb his roles included leading HR for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Southern Africa, and leading the Staffing function for R&D and Commercial and Corporate Staff organizations. He also served with Capital One Financial during its explosive growth phase as a generalist and developer of a Global Workforce Integration initiative. He held a regional HR leadership role with the B2B division of Office Depot and multiple positions with Mobil Oil Corporation.

Najeeb holds an MBA and MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA in History from Georgetown University.

Pamela Sheehan
Senior Programs Manager

Pam Sheehan has held a variety of key administrative positions since joining DeSai Systems in 1987. As Senior Programs Manager, she oversees all aspects of corporate university content and delivery management. Her primary focus is on the development and management of the DeSai Group Provider Network, a consortium of over 200 regionally and nationally recognized learning providers. She guides the development and application of over 7500 learning events in support of client learning requirements.

She directs the administration of employee enrollment and registration for client entities, instructor recruitment, and coordination of content provider activity. She has comprehensive experience in administrative management, corporate human resources management, sales support, and project management roles.

Alain Rostain
Facilitator

Alain Rostain is an expert on organizational innovation. His work over the last 16 years has included helping clients with:

Articulating the strategic mandate for innovation
Developing and executing implementation plansfor innovation
Designing and rolling out innovation culture change programs
Training leaders to drive innovation behaviors & results
Facilitating and coaching critical innovation teams

Additionally, Alain integrates creative collaboration methods and the innovative use of improvisational techniques to drive organizational effectiveness and results. Alain studied Artificial Intelligence at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Yale University. His academic work focused on understanding how people think, using computers as a model for cognitive thought. As a manager for Price Waterhouse's consulting practice, he developed valuable insights and practices to help people be more effective in the workplace while successfully creating and sustaining organizational change. Alain started Creative Advantage in 1993.

Alain is also the founder and leader of the improv in business community. He was introduced to improvisational theater in 1990. He immediately saw the power of the principles and techniques of improvisation to develop and support group collaboration, individual growth and results.

Alain is fluent in Spanish and French.

Frank Woods
Facilitator

Frank Wood is a seasoned facilitator with 20+ years of experience working with Fortune 1000 organizations as a professional facilitator and workshop leader. He consistently receives exceptional reviews from clients and students due to his relaxed but results-driven style of instruction. He easily creates an atmosphere that allows participants to get involved, participate, and contribute.

Franks also is an expert when designing new workshops in numerous other areas besides innovation; such as leadership development, information technology, change management and other productivity software programs.