Shrinivas V. Dempo was born on 2nd February, 1969 in Mumbai into a Goan family that has had a history of five and a half centuries of business interests and social responsibility behind it. Mr. Dempo is the chairman of Goa’s leading business house, Dempo. Mr. Dempo was called upon to lead the family business from the year 1998, using his post-graduate management education in Industrial Administration received at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, to give a new direction to the business group. His stewardship has been marked by expansion of existing businesses, benchmarking of products and processes to international standards, introduction of progressive people management systems, enterprise resource planning, corporate sustainability reporting and the deepening of corporate social responsibility. The Group’s extensive engagement with Goan society covers institutions and programmes of higher education, cultural enrichment, environmental conservation, sporting excellence and affirmative action.

Mr. Anil Counto is the founder of Alcon - Anil Counto Enterprises. From a tiny engineering unit set up in 1971, Alcon now boasts 5 major business verticals - Construction, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Trading and Infrastructure/Logistics. Today his unit has grown into one of Goa's largest business conglomerates and he has become one of the most well-known entrepreneurs in the State. He has diversified interests in social, cultural, education and economic fields.

Mr. Ralph de Sousa is the founder of the de Souza Group, a leading business house based in Goa. It has 5 hotels and 3 travel companies, a foreign exchange wing and a real estate & holdings firm. It started off in 1989 as a very modest enterprise and has now grown into a business house that turns over a billion rupees per annum.