Vinod "Vinny" K. Gupta

Senior Advisor, Higher Education

Vinod "Vinny" K. Gupta joined JumpStart after 25 years as an executive and serial entrepreneur. Born in India, Vinny has lived and worked in Northeast Ohio for the past 32 years.

Vinny began his career as a product development engineer at Gould Inc and progressed to Director of Operations at their St. Louis aftermarket automotive facility. Vinny later joined Condec Corporation as general manager in Orrville, Ohio for their captive manufacturing of industrial castings and forgings. After a few years, he acquired the operational assets by raising money with investors, vendors and parent corporation financing. As founder and President/CEO of the Orrville facility (Technocast Inc) he grew the business from $1 million to over $16 million in 12 years. Concurrently, he acquired a startup specialty metal alloy casting company, Ancast Inc, and grew revenue to $5 million in approximately ten years.

In 1990 Vinny and his group bought the assets of Ohio Cast Products, a castings company in Canton, Ohio. As President/CEO he grew the business from $9 million to $26 million by 2004. The common threads for growth in these organizations were: business reengineering, deploying valuable human assets effectively and intelligently, new product introduction, implementation of innovative new technology (from U.S. and abroad), marketing to customer needs ahead of competitors, increase in value added components, and maintaining strict quality standards. His most recent acquisition was in home healthcare.

Vinny was also the founding President of Ohio Cast Metals Association and has received the minority entrepreneur of the year award from City of Cleveland and is President of the Asian India Alliance. On May 20, 2011, Governor John R. Kasich appointed Vinny to serve as a member of the Ohio Board of Regents for a term beginning May 17, 2011 and ending September 20, 2016.

Vinny holds a Bachelors degree in Chemistry from Bombay University, a Bachelors degree in metallurgical engineering from Michigan Technological University and a Masters degree in metallurgical engineering from Case Western Reserve University.