OUR TEAM

Rudra, a native of Nepal, works closely with the Deerhold teams in the US and Nepal. Through his hands-on direction of the operations and technology teams, Deerhold is able to deliver high-quality, cost-effective solutions and services. Prior to founding Deerhold, Rudra founded Deerwalk, Inc., serving as CEO for the company’s first five years and later as executive chairman until Deerwalk was acquired by Cedar Gate Technologies in 2020. He founded Deerwalk Institute of Technology in 2011, Nepal's premier Computer Science college, and serves as chair. Prior to Deerwalk, Rudra served as Chief Operating Officer at Verisk Health, where he directed operations and R&D, leading the offshore development center of 300+ engineers. Rudra was a founder and Chief Technology Officer of D2Hawkeye, which provided data analytics and decision-support tools to the healthcare industry and was acquired by Verisk Health. Early in his career, Rudra worked as a Business Systems Engineer and a Database Architect. He has extensive consulting experience, having worked for several prestigious financial institutions and healthcare organizations. Rudra holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from Mehran University in Pakistan and a Ph.D. in Economics from Northeastern University.

Samjhana has led programs in the area of social entrepreneurship, sustainable impact investing and global partnership development for over 15 years with a variety of organizations including Ashoka, the World Bank, and numerous international foundations and non-profit organizations. Currently, she is advising organizations working with women entrepreneurship and gender lens investing in Japan and South East Asia. Samjhana holds a BA from the University of Vermont and Kansai Gaidai University, and Master in International Public policy from SAIS, Johns Hopkins University.

Bachelor of Law, University of Tokyo (1983) Master of Laws, University of California (Boalt Hall) School of Law, Berkeley (1988) Master of Policy Science, Saitama University (predecessor to the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), 1994). Born in Himeji, Japan in 1959. Professor Araki teaches international economic law and trade policy at Yokohama National University in Japan and currently serves as the dean of the Department of Law. He joined the faculty in July 2003 as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in April 2005. Before joining academia, he served as a Japanese government official for nearly 20 years. Professor Araki joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1983. During most of his career at MITI (later renamed METI), he was involved in multilateral economic affairs, including development assistance, intellectual property, environmental protection and multilateral trade negotiations. From 1995 to 1998, he served as legal affairs officer at the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organization, a division primarily devoted to settlement of disputes among WTO members. From 2001 to 2003, he was director of research at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI), an incorporated administrative agency affiliated with METI. Professor Araki has published a number of books and articles on international trade law in Japanese and English.

Shigeharu Takano is a Director and CTO of Roudiam Inc,. A Tokyo native and a system engineer by background, Takano has led successful startups in Nepal, Israel and Silicon Valley. Previously, Takano served as an Executive Officer and CTO of an IT company listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and developed a number of web marketing support services. In 2019, he led the development and advancement of eKYC solutions using facial recognition technology as the CPO responsible for project management, and he obtained a patent for encryption technology using color codes (patent 6080282). Since 2020 he has served as a Representative of Octopus LLC.