The Storytrails team
We are a motley group of individuals from diverse backgrounds, based in locations across the world, bound by a shared interest in language, storytelling, research and everything history.
Founder & CEO
Vijay Prabhat Kamalakara
Vijay went to a B-School, worked briefly in the Banking and IT industries, and for many years now, has been telling stories for a living. He loves puns, history, stage, sarcasm, trivia, and words in general and is grateful that his work surrounds him with people who obsess about these even more.
Vijay is the Founder and CEO of Storytrails. A regular guest speaker at various forums and educational institutions, Vijay is the recipient of the ‘Young creative entrepreneur award’ from the British Council and the ‘Youth achiever award for innovative entrepreneurship’ from Yuva Shakti.
Head of Training
Akila Raman
A postgraduate in History and a collector of assorted historical and mythological stories and trivia, Akila has over fifteen years of teaching under her belt. She has also been a Language Trainer in the ITES industry for a short stint. Akila has a beautiful way with words, reads like she is possessed, loves telling stories and is happiest when meeting new people.
Her work at Storytrails gives her legitimate reason to engage all of these interests. After a 15 year stint at Storytrails working as a storyteller, senior research associate and Head of Training, she now identifies as a full time grandmother first, and as a freelance editor, writer and coach at Storytrails.
Head of Operations
Lakshmi Shankar
Lakshmi has a degree in commerce and a diploma in Montessori education from the Indian Institute of Montessori Studies, Bangalore. She worked in advertising as a copywriter, as a storyteller with the British Council and as a kindergarten teacher at one of Chennai’s leading schools. She is passionate about storytelling and joined the team in 2007.
Lakshmi devours books, enjoys cross fit training, plays tennis, enjoys Bollywood dancing, and often play-acts in front of the mirror, dreaming of the big Bollywood break eluding her. In between all this, she manages to find time to Head Operations at Storytrails.
Senior Research Associate & Writer
Kaushik SV
Kaushik has held many CXO positions in a large corporate group, before retiring and joining Storytrails in 2015. His MBA from XLRI had not prepared him for retirement, but now that he has time, he has revived an old romance – History.
He is a Senior Research Associate and Storyteller. He believes corporate presentations and walking tours have a couple of things in common: Passion and Preparation. Kaushik is an active blogger and has more stories to tell in his posts. And when he tires of telling stories, he switches to music. His taste in music is totally eclectic, and ranges from western classical to Turkish.
Centre Head
Swarnaprada Palaniswamy
Swarna is a Chartered accountant. After a stint in finance with a reputed organisation, she chose to go off the beaten path and took up the challenge of setting up and managing a Storytrails franchise. Swarna has been associated with Storytrails since 2012 and is the Centre head for Storytrails Madurai.
In her free time, she loves to read and enjoys exploring cities on foot, with just a backpack for company. Trekking, camping, water sports – Swarna enjoys them all. When she is not in the great outdoors, Swarna is a compulsive cleaner and organiser of everything around her – her workstation, her house, her car. Even her house plants toe her line.
MIS & Accounting
Anuradha P
Anu crunches numbers. She will happily take any opportunity to pore over columns of data, patiently connecting the dots to help the lay ones among us see the story in those numbers. By qualification she is a computer science engineer and has an MBA to boot.
Her past work includes stints in business development, recruitment and MIS related roles. At Storytrails, she manages MIS & Accounts functions.
Managing the Operations
Aditi Radhakrishnan
Aditi spent her growing years in Bombay, Kuala Lumpur, Palakkad, and Delhi. She is now a happy resident of Trivandrum. With two kids, a string of hobbies, and a love for reading, Aditi is constantly seeking new adventures.
Having worked as a Human Resources consultant and trainer for many years, her newest hat is Managing the Operations of Storytrails in Trivandrum.
