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Past Summer Venture Program Participants: Where Are They Now? (Series: Part I)

As undergraduate students participating in the 2010 Babson Summer Venture Program (SVP) Enrico Palmerino ’11 and Dinesh Wadhwani ’12 focused on growing and scaling their four person company, ThinkLite. During that time, Palmerino and Wadhwani were able to acquire ThinkLite’s second major account (Kodak), begin the process of manufacturing lights in China, produce the first ThinkLite product lines, and work on a business model for opening offices overseas.

Today that business model has proven successful as ThinkLite operates offices in thirteen countries and experiences nearly 300% year over year growth under the direction of Wadhwani, now CEO. The Company has also developed and owns several lighting patents, and has experienced significant success with a recent product, the HammeLite, designed to cut the electricity cost of indoor tennis facilities by more than 40%.

Enrico Palmerino

Enrico Palmerino ’11

Palmerino, who sold his majority stake in ThinkLite in 2011, has successfully transitioned from clean-teach to bookkeeping and accounting at SmartBooks, a virtual finance department for startups, proving that an entrepreneurial mindset is applicable to organizations of all types. Palmerino serves as SmartBooks’ Managing Director, and has tripled SmartBooks’ revenue and helped grow the business from eight to twenty-three employees within his first year.

According to Palmerino, the SVP tremendously helped ThinkLite evolve, “The presentation we gave at the end of the Summer Venture Program was a real game changer for ThinkLite. It brought ThinkLite to the next level.” In 2011 Palmerino and Wadhwani were ranked no. 2 in the Bloomberg Businessweek Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25 ranking.

Hear from this year’s Summer Venture Program participants at the Venture Showcase on Thursday, July 25, and check back for more posts from our “Past Summer Venture Program Participants: Where Are They Now?” series.


Dinesh Wadhwani speaking at a Babson event in 2011.