Board of Directors

Akshay is an experienced corporate investor, having spent 20+ years evaluating and investing in stressed and distressed opportunities. He has invested several billion dollars of capital across a range of industries and served (as a representative of his institutions) on many creditor committees and boards. He has significant experience with multi-tiered complex capital structures and has held high impact leadership roles over his career.

Mr. Bhalla, recognized for being an important business leader in the customer experience industry, has demonstrated, throughout his professional career, his ability to generate value thanks to a strategy focused on innovation that is also results-oriented. During over 20 years of experience in this sector, he has worked for companies all over the world, including: India, US, Canada and Europe.

Before his arrival at Atento as a board director, Mr. Bhalla held the position of CEO at the Minacs Group, a company that was later acquired by Concentrix (an American customer experience firm based in California) where he held the position of Senior Vice President Emerging Business.

Previously, he held the position of COO in companies such as RSM McGladrey FPO and iCall India, in his native country.

In recent years, prior to joining Atento, Mr. Bhalla has worked as investor and board director at companies such as Support Ninja, Voicegain and Venture X, where, thanks to his contribution in improving business models, he has brought about a notable improvement in results.

Bill Payne has over 30 years of executive and management experience in both small, entrepreneurial, and large corporate environments and cultures, having also served in several non-executive, mentoring, advisory and consulting roles. In addition to his current roles at several global start-up companies, such as Room Rocket, Usable Media and Excello, he is a board mentor at Critical Eye, and a venture capitalist with UK-based Octopus Investments. He is an experienced Non-Exec Director and Chair as well as a visiting Professor at several business schools, including Lancaster University, Henley Management School, Lyon Business School and the University of Surrey, where he was President of the Surrey Business School MBA program. Earlier in his career, Mr. Payne was a senior executive at IBM, where he held leadership roles in consulting, strategy and process outsourcing in Europe and other geographies, including as General manager of the Global Customer Experience (CRM) Outsourcing Group. Mr. Payne also leads his own strategic consultancy Acadameus, which advises start-ups, mid-caps and high-growth companies.

Dimitrius has more than 20 years’ experience in the technology and business services sectors where he has led sales, after-sales and operations functions for multinational companies such as Avaya, Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens, Genesys Prime and Contax. Most recently he served as Vice President of Operations for Mutant, formerly Genesys Prime, a leading provider of digital customer experience solutions in Brazil. Prior to joining Mutant, Dimitrius served as Atento Global Commercial Director and Brazil Multisector Director from 2015 to 2017. Dimitrius has a degree in electrical engineering from Universidade de Mogi das Cruzes in Brazil. He also has a specialization in building and leading customer-centric organizations from Harvard Business School, as well as an MBA in Marketing from ESPM School of Advertising and Marketing, with a specialization in Leadership from the São Paulo Business School.

On June 24, 2020, the Board elected Mr. John Madden to serve as a Class III Director to replace Charles Megaw. Mr. Madden, 46, is a Managing Director at HPS Investment Partners. Mr. Madden built his career in global financial institutions in the US and UK. He spent 16 years at Arcapita, a private equity firm, where he worked in both the US and London offices. Mr. Madden holds a BA in Political Economy from Williams College.

Mr. Mark Nelson-Smith has more than 25 years of experience and has delivered impressive results in corporate finance throughout his professional career. Before joining Atento, Mark Nelson-Smith served as Non-Executive Director of ED&F Man, Cell C, Invitel and Primacom, among others. He also brings over a decade of experience working in corporate finance for UBS Investment Bank.