William Batiste Founder and Chairman

Bill is the former North American head of Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ outsourcing practice and an early pioneer in Business Process Outsourcing.  He led PwC in the development and acquisition of the most profitable BPO contract of the mid-90s (BP Amico).  He further negotiated alliances with technology and software companies like Intel, Commerce One, SAP and BEA Systems for hosting and e-business application services. 

As a consulting executive, Bill led the West Coast Consulting Business Unit of PwC, a $35 million practice with 175 professionals, through a period of unprecedented growth (from 25 to 2000 consultants) and profitability. 

Ram Iyer Founder and CEO

Ram is a global thought leader in outsourcing.  His varied background and leadership experience in high technology and telecommunications brings a unique perspective to the Argea. 

He has written several articles and a book chapter on globalization opportunities for Mid-market companies and is currently working a book on how globalization affects mid market companies.    

As a veteran professional, Ram has experience in business development, strategic planning, IT implementation, sales and marketing, and general management.  Prior to Argea, he served as CEO of Fremont Technology Group, an enterprise software company focused on back-office integration, and later as Vice President at inOvate, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm and incubator founded by Cisco, Sequoia Capital and Charles River Ventures.  He also spent time heading up the marketing department for a $4billion division of Lucent and at Boeing developing processes and technology for assembling airplanes.   

Sid Milstein Executive Vice President, BPO and Process Consulting

Sid is a Six Sigma Quality leader from General Electric (GE) and one of the founders of GE’s offshoring business (now known as GEnpact, with 20,000 employees).

He is a seasoned practitioner, bringing deep experience in the practice of outsourcing and process reengineering to Argea.  He is sought around the globe for his knowledge and expertise in these practice areas, having advised companies on the specialized aspects of outsourcing planning, implementation and governance across various domains including financial services, manufacturing, transportation and telecommunications.

Prior to Argea, Sid spent a highly accomplished 25 year career at the world’s most advanced practitioner in quality management, General Electric (GE).  He served as leader of GE Capital’s Corporate Sourcing Global Initiatives and Six Sigma Quality, and as the Senior VP of Six Sigma Quality at GE Technology Management Services.

Sid holds a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and is a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program.

Partha Bardhan President, India Operations

Partha is the former head of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) outsourcing practice and most recently the partner in a big 4 firm where he lead their risk advisory services practice for the oil and gas industries. 

Partha brings over 30 years of experience in outsourcing and management consulting to Argea.  He has negotiated and transitioned large outsourcing contracts in the Asia Pacific region, established and managed remote processing for F&A processes in India, and developed business strategies for large global IT and Outsourcing organizations.

LuEllen Schafer Cross Cultural Communications Expert

Lu Ellen is acknowledged worldwide as a cross cultural communications expert.   She travels around the globe to train professionals in cross-cultural communications at top multinationals and outsourcing companies such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Accenture, Synopsys, NetApp, Juniper Networks, Apple, Agilent, LexisNexis, Charles Schwab and Toshiba.   Through structured education programs she teaches professionals how to break down barriers to effective communication through the understanding of cultural differences and how to bridge the cultural divide to improve business performance.  

She has worked in India since 1993 providing education to top Indian consulting companies including Infosys, HCL, Wipro, TCS and MindTree Consulting.   Here she has trained over 6,000 Americans to work with India and 5,000 Indians to work with the US.  

Lu Ellen has been on India television, featured in the Economic Times of India and been written about in the New York Times. Recently, she contributed to the book Offshoring Information Technology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce by Erran Carmel and Paul Tjia.

Rip Sanders Executive Vice President, ITO and Systems Integration

Rip is a seasoned consultant with over 25 years experience in successfully implementing large scale, complex technology systems such as the financial systems for the State of Alaska and the LA County District Attorney's Office, and the largest procurement portal of it's time, Covisint, for GM & Ford.

Prior to Argea, he was the head of Pricewaterhouse Coopers' West Region system integration unit and was a member of the PwC global eBusiness management committee where he provided guidance on the approach and methodology to eBusiness consulting.   In this role, Rip consulted with several Global 1000 enterprises including:   CommerceOne, Intel, Western Digital, Sony, Disney and the Bank of America.        

Rip holds an MBA from Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from UCLA.

Lee Swindall Vice President - Marketing

Lee is an early pioneer in conducting market research and industry conferences on outsourcing and offshoring.  He has over 15 years experience across multiple industries and sectors including global financial services, application development, risk management and market research.

Prior to Argea, Lee was the Vice President at Software Outsourcing Research (S.O.R.) (software outsourcing research) where he researched globalization strategies to deliver insight and intelligence on outsourcing to Fortune 1000 companies. 

Lee also lived and worked in the UK and The Netherlands for seven years where he held senior positions at Market Makers Group Amsterdam (London), Ltd., and CM&M/Hong Kong Shanghai Bank London, ABN AMRO, Lehman Bros. and UBS.