Experienced Leadership
“Our leadership brings over 200 years of combined expertise across Fortune 500 companies and successful turnarounds.”
Soumam Debgupta
Managing Director
Soumam has over two decades of experience across Fortune 100 companies in the consumer products and technology businesses driving digital transformation that has generated over $400M in bottomline impact for those companies. He brings in deep expertise in leveraging technology to drive product innovation & operational excellence in a manner that directly impacts the value of a company.
As the Founder of Lightyear Ventures, Soumam partners with small business owners to transform their business operations through a product led growth mindset, that helps companies unlock unit economics that are category leading. He guides them on how to think about product value proposition, their pricing strategy and the end-to-end business operations to streamline growth and margin, increasing the attractiveness of the business for potential exit.
Soumam lives in Seattle and holds an Engineering degree in Electronics & Robotics and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management.
Praveen Dwivedi
Managing Partner
With over 3 decades of experience in Consumer Goods, FMCG, Retail and Direct To Consumer businesses, Praveen Dwivedi is a seasoned business development and supply chain professional. He has deep expertise across Brand Building, Sales Operations, and Manufacturing Supply Chain. He has led multiple Fortune 1000 consumer brands through explosive growth phases as their CEO & COO while building high performance teams.
As a Managing Partner in Lightyear Ventures, Praveen advises our clients on their branding and manufacturing strategy, helping them unlock growth through the right positioning of their products and services. Additionally, he advises business owners on how to leverage product innovation to drive revenue & margin growth & create a compelling story for potential buyers.
Praveen’s passion is to nurture businesses and help entrepreneurs achieve their vision. Praveen is located in Atlanta and an alumni of Wharton Business School with a MBA in Finance and a Member of the Cost & Works Accountants of India, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience to his work.
Kristin Bryce
Strategic Advisor
Kristin has over two decades of experience in Lean, Six Sigma and Organization Change Management having driven transformational change across both private and public sector organizations. She founded, Managed Chaos Innovations, where she brings a creative and human-centered approach to organizational transformation.
Blending her background in process improvement, operations management, and the arts, Kristin helps companies reimagine their foundational operating systems, align processes with purpose, and strengthen employee engagement to create cultures that thrive beyond the founder. Her signature frameworks use storytelling and gamification to make complex systems relatable and actionable, empowering teams to identify opportunities, foster accountability, and build the cultural resilience needed for a successful exit or transition. As a Strategic Advisor, she helps our clients increase their value through culture and people transformation.
Kristin lives in Colorado Springs and holds a degree in Computer Science from Colorado Technical University and is certified in Black Belt and Lean Manufacturing from Rochester University.
Fadi El Mouallem
Strategic Advisor
Fadi brings in over two decades of experience as a global procurement & sourcing expert leading the function across Fortune 100 companies like Apple & Salesforce. He has deep domain expertise in transforming procurement into a strategic advantage for companies across the technology and real estate space. He has developed exceptional frameworks to help companies optimize their procurement operations to reduce their spend and drive margin improvement.
As an Strategic Advisor, Fadi works with our clients to assess their procurement needs, evaluate their spend and craft a bespoke procurement strategy that meets their scaling needs but also reduces overall spend, driving maximum ROI on their procurement dollars. Fadi helps our clients increase their valuation by becoming lightly efficient in their procurement strategies and thus driving multiples.
Fadi is located in San Francisco and holds an Executive Degree from Harvard Law School and an MBA from California State University.