The Artilient Team
Nikhil R. Jain, Managing Partner
Nikhil brings to Artilient diverse experience in various industries in several roles including management consultant, business advisor and C-level positions. A serial entrepreneur with the mindset of a management consultant, Nikhil has helped his clients succeed through careful planning, analysis and execution. Prior to founding Artilient, Nikhil held the position of COO in a business advisory and management consulting firm where he advised clients in various industries such as hospitality, renewable energy, real estate, healthcare, financial services, nutrition and social networking and helped with funding requirements, private placements, business process redesign, business planning, devising marketing, business development and go-to-market strategies, mentoring entrepreneurs, structuring MBO's and LBO's and consulting to executive management. Nikhil has consulted to various Fortune 500 clients in industries such as retail, utilities, manufacturing, healthcare and helped with implementing multi-million dollar projects and advising on mergers and acquisitions. Nikhil currently sits on the Mentoring Committee of the Los Angeles Business Technology Center, the Board of Advisors of the California Lutheran University's Entrepreneur Roundtable and the Executive Committee of the Caltech MIT Enterprise Forum. He is also the CEO of Clean Green Guy, Inc.. Nikhil has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA in Finance from USC's Marshall School of Business.
Ian E. McKilligan, Director
Ian sees business as a noble pursuit and a mechanism for personal growth and a means to benefit oneself, one's team, and one's community in several ways. As an entrepreneur and business owner, he enjoys helping people who share the desire to serve the world through their ideas, hard work, and services. With a background in Information Technology (IT), he enjoys exploring the strategic application of IT to allow people to do more interesting, important work for the business. As someone who understands the importance of disciplined processes, Ian knows that people come first, process second, and technology last. Ian has a BS in Business Administration from Michigan Tech University.
George Melika, Consultant
George brings to Artilient his unique mix of experience in startups, high-tech, finance, and corporate governance. A successful entrepreneur himself, George has founded, and helped found, several successful telecommunications, multinational, and Web 2.0 businesses. As someone who appreciates the discipline and focus required to bring an idea to fruition, George has guided several entrepreneurs through the maze of legal structures, business planning, execution and funding of their ideas. George has a B.S. in Computer Science from Loyola Marymount University, and an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business.
Elliot Yan, Senior Consultant
Elliot Yan specializes in negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, and strategic alliances. Most recently he was been managing distressed/bankruptcy mergers and acquisitions, balance sheet restructurings, joint ventures, and private equity investments for IndyMac Bank, the 2nd largest independent mortgage lender and 34th largest bank in US, where he transacted in real estate, mortgage, and specialty finance verticals. Prior to IndyMac, he was an associate at Comstock Capital Partners where he focused on private investment opportunities in consumer, media, distribution, healthcare, and China. He has also operated in general manager capacities for its portfolio companies.
Mr. Yan also brings over 10 years of operating and advisory experience in new media, e-commerce, technology development and commercialization, and Internet/Telecom infrastructure at New.net, an Idealab! Company, and Centergate Research Group, a venture incubator, where he was involved in 2 successful startups including building up, as a key founder, a still-thriving global-scale network and security monitoring company that serves financial services. As a frequent consultant in new media, online marketing, telecom, and content distribution, he has advised numerous investment managers, venture capitalists, and management consultancies such as McKinsey and Co, SAC Capital, TCW, The Capital Group, Tudor Investment, and Crescendo Ventures.
Mr. Yan has a B.S. in Computer Engineering from University of Notre Dame and an M.S. and PhD (ABD) in Computer Science from University of Southern California. Mr. Yan also has an MBA from University of Southern California.
Kirk A. Marangi, Senior Consultant
Kirk has spent over twenty years in manufacturing companies working from within finance, quality assurance, or operations with one common theme of finding opportunities for significant efficiency gains. Kirk’s approach stems from his undergraduate training as an industrial engineer and his MBA with a concentration in Finance. His industry experience includes precision machining, plastics, recycling, packaged and fresh food, personal computers, irrigation, medical devices, and automobile lien and titling. Kirk is an expert in process redesign, streamlining, and process flow. He has reduced Packard Bell-NEC’s tech support busy signals from 100 per customer to 0 per customer at no additional labor cost. Also at Packard Bell-NEC, he has increased factory productivity by 7% at no additional labor cost. At FDI Collateral Management, the leading automobile title administration provider to the banking industry, Kirk revamped all processes using a combination of streamlining, automation, off-shoring, and systems design, resulting in a 20% productivity gain.
Kirk successfully lead the International Quality Standard ISO 9001 process at Packard Bell-NEC’s North American personal computer manufacturing facility in Sacramento, California. This site produced several million PC’s per year. Kirk’s experience in quality assurance could assist an emerging company to implement an appropriate quality program. Kirk has extensive financial experience. He set up Packard Bell-NEC’s first budgeting system and analyzed their new product profitability. He has dealt with practically all areas of finance, from capital equipment to inventory and cost accounting to warranty to labor and operating cost. Kirk’s BS in Industrial Engineering is from Stanford University and his MBA is from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He also earned his MA in International Studies from Penn, and was a Fellow in the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies while at Penn and Wharton.
Tony Pereira, Chief Sustainability Advisor
Tony's multidisciplinary background and numerous talents have enabled him to work with world renowned architects at KSLW Architects, Inc., in aerospace research and development at Teledine as a Project Engineer, and as a Senior Systems Engineer expert in worldwide state-of-the-art factory automation at Amada, the world's largest machine tool manufacturer. Tony has won multiple awards, the most prestigious one being the Winner of the United Nations and Unesco Mondialogo Engineering Award in 2007 among 3,200 participants from 89 countries in a peer-reviewed engineering competition with entries from Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Cambridge and Oxford. Only 30 projects were awarded.
Tony has five peer-reviewed scientific papers published as first author on composites, one on sustainability, and has several more in progress. Tony has presented papers at the AIAA, the American Institute of Astronautics and Aeronautics, SAMPE, the Society for the Advancement in Manufacturing Process Engineering, and the ASC, the American Society for Composites. About ten other scientific papers were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals in collaboration with other authors on diverse topics such as nanocomposites and solar cells, has collaborated in the writing of two book chapters, one on nanocomposites and the other on dye-sensitized solar cells, and several articles in magazines on issues related to solar energy and sustainability.
Tony is completing a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering at UCLA, has a Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA, a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering Cum Laude from CSU in Long Beach, President and Deans' Honors, Tau Beta Pi Lifetime, an Associate of Science in Architecture with President's Honors, from Los Angeles Harbor College where he studied with Dr. Wakita, a famous California Architect and world renowned architecture textbook writer, an Associate of Liberal Arts Alpha Gamma Sigma from Los Angeles Harbor College, Certificates in Micro Computer Engineering and Advanced Software Engineering from the University of California Irvine, and a Certificate in Solar Energy from the University of Central Florida, FSEC, Florida Solar Energy Center. In addition, Tony is completing is PE (Professional Engineer) registration with the State of California Board of Professional Engineers, is a Sun/Solaris Certified Systems Engineer, has Network and Systems Management and VAX/VMS Systems Management Certification, and is completing is requirements to qualify for the Architect license exam in California.