Faculty
Ashok Vasudevan
Co-founder and Chief Executive
Preferred Brands International
Area of Expertise: Entrepreneurship
Ashok Vasudevan is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Preferred Brands International; a Stamford CT based Food Company. Preferred Brands is the manufacturer and marketer of Tasty Bite and other brands of all-natural, ready-to-eat specialty foods that is available in leading natural food stores and supermarket chains in several countries including the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Japan. He is also Chairman of the board of Tasty Bite Eatables Limited, Pune, India’s largest exporter of prepared foods (BSE Symbol TBE.B)
Ashok is also the co-founder of ASG-Omni, a US and India based strategy-consulting firm that designed and developed entry strategies for large US corporations looking to do business in India, specifically in the area of agriculture, food and IT.
Prior to his entrepreneurial stint, Ashok headed the India desk of Pepsi World Trade from its world beverage headquarters in Somers, New York. He was a member of Pepsi’s start-up team in India as Vice President – Exports. During his tenure at Pepsi he helped set up India’s International trading division in a wide range of businesses including commodity trading, food processing, and value-added exports. In the process, he has been involved in the design of several joint ventures in India and the US and was awarded the prestigious Pepsi MVP award in 1990.
Before joining Pepsi, Ashok spend 10 years with the Unilever in various functions that included Management Development, Sales & Marketing and International Business. During his last three years with Unilever, Ashok was Operations Manager for Eastern Europe, where he ran India’s largest export program in that region.
Ashok regularly lectures at leading business schools in the US and India and is a frequent participant in conferences on International Trade and Business. He recently co-authored part of a book “Building Global Business Success – Lessons from Emerging Markets” (Macmillan, 2004). He is an executive member of the ITC (International Trade Council) in the Stamford Chamber of Commerce. He has Bachelors in Agricultural Economics from Bangalore and a business degree from Bajaj Institute, Bombay and the Harvard Business School.
