InMobi appoints Harvard professor as independent director

Mobile marketing and advertising platform InMobi has announced the appointment of Harvard professor and economic strategist Tarun Khanna as an independent director on the board, bringing its strength to seven directors, two of whom are independent. 

Khanna is Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School where he teaches strategy, corporate governance and international business. In 2015, he served the Indian government in a national commission to shape the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

He has served as the first director of the multi-disciplinary Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard since 2010. His other engagements with India include his role as a board member for Bharat Financial Inclusion Fund. Moreover, Khanna is a cofounder at startup incubator Axilor Ventures, which is based in Bengaluru.

“All our businesses -- InMobi Unified Marketing Cloud, Glance and TruFactor -- are scaling globally. The breadth and depth of his insights from academia and his expertise as an entrepreneur and board member across varied industries across the globe will stand us in good stead on this journey,” said Naveen Tewari, founder at InMobi. 

SoftBank- and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed InMobi recently launched its business-to-consumer product Glance, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify trending topics. The product comes pre-loaded on budget smartphone devices.

InMobi’s other products include its unified marketing cloud, which is the revenue mainstay, and TruFactor, a secure data platform for telcos.