# Arka Dhar

> Arka Dhar, also known professionally as Arka Prava Dhar, co-founded Lift12 and Zinier with Andrew Wolf. He led Zinier as CEO before becoming an advisor and evangelist in 2021. His subsequent career included product and data leadership at OpenAI; his 2026 speaker biography identifies him as Product Management Director at Google DeepMind, working on Gemini’s enterprise use cases.

- **Role:** Product Management Director at Google DeepMind
- **Organizations:** Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Zinier, Lift12, TripAdvisor, Rocket Internet
- **Education:** Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan Fellowship / Sloan programme, London Business School
- **Known for:** Co-founded and sold Lift12 with Andrew Wolf., Co-founded Zinier and served as its CEO through its January 2020 $90 million Series C., Completed the London Business School Sloan programme in 2022.

## Career timeline

- **Before 2012** — Worked in market development at TripAdvisor and as a venture partner at Rocket Internet.
- **2012** — Co-founded Singapore-based Lift12 with Andrew Wolf; the founders later sold the business.
- **2015** — Incorporated Zinier with Andrew Wolf in October.
- **2016** — Began building out Zinier in late 2016.
- **2020** — As CEO, led Zinier during its $90 million Series C announcement in January.
- **2021** — Moved to advisor and evangelist as Prateek Chakravarty became Zinier CEO in March.
- **2022** — Completed the London Business School Sloan programme.
- **2023** — Publicly identified as Product Lead at OpenAI in university event coverage.
- **2024** — Spoke at Platform Leaders on July 11 while at OpenAI.
- **2026** — Identified as Product Management Director at Google DeepMind; his biography describes his prior OpenAI role as Head of Data.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and sold Lift12 with Andrew Wolf.
- Co-founded Zinier and served as its CEO through its January 2020 $90 million Series C.
- Completed the London Business School Sloan programme in 2022.
- Held product and data leadership roles at OpenAI before joining Google DeepMind.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Co-authored a Google DeepMind post with Seshu Ajjarapu announcing the ATL Saathi educator-assistant pilot in India.
- **2026-02** — Listed as Product Management Director at Google DeepMind and an opening keynote speaker at The Delivery Conference alongside Mary Portas and Al Ko.
- **2024-07** — Participated in a Platform Leaders discussion about AI adoption, access and distribution of benefits.

## Links

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkapdhar/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/arka_dhar

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/arka-dhar
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-15