VCCircle

Anand Sunderji began working with Paul Capital in early 2011 as a Regional Representative for sourcing secondary transactions in India. Anand is also a Partner at Perpetual Value Partners, an emerging market focused private equity advisory firm. He has over seven years of private equity experience in Asia and was formerly the co-head of the India fund of funds at Guggenheim in Mumbai. Prior to this he was the co-lead of the Asian private equity fund of funds at Adveq in Zurich and also held the role of the Head of Investors at the World Economic Forum in Geneva and New York. He started his career at INVESCO in London as an European equity portfolio manager. Mr Sunderji holds a bachelors degree in Chemistry and Chemical Technology from the University of Bradford.

Avneet Kochar is the former director of AT&T Investment Management Corporation (ATTIMCo -a small team managing AT&T’s pension fund) covering public equities, risk budgeting, private equity and real estate. As the director of alternative assets, he started separate accounts for co-investments and secondaries and was also responsible for the pension fund’s foray into Emerging Asia.

Chris Loh joined Axiom Asia in August 2009. He now leads the firm’s venture capital fund investments throughout Asia and is responsible for all fund investments in India. He also actively participates in co-investments and secondary investments.

Prior to joining Axiom Asia, he had nine years of private equity experience with GIC Special Investments, spending the first two years in the Singapore office and the next seven years in the San Francisco office. Chris led due diligence and investments in venture capital, growth capital, buyout and secondary funds in the U.S. and Asia. He was also involved in four direct investments in high-tech startups — two went public and two were acquired.

Chris worked for seven years as an engineer at DSO National Laboratories, the largest R&D organization in Singapore serving the country's defense force. He was promoted to Senior Member of Technical Staff and led a team of engineers in the development of secured, wireless communication systems. His research was published in international conferences like Milcom in the U.S.

Chris was awarded the Monbusho Scholarship jointly by the Singapore Government and the Japanese Ministry of Education. He earned a Bachelor of Electronics Engineering degree from the University of Tokyo and completed two master programs (an MBA and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering) at the National University of Singapore. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst charter holder. Chris is fluent in English, Mandarin and Japanese.

Mr. Kohli joined the Advisors in May 2000 and leads client fund raising functions in addition to managing the consumer sector.  He previously worked at General Electric and was selected into its two-year global financial management leadership program.  Mr. Kohli received an MBA from Clark University and a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from Delhi University.

JM Trivedi is the face of Actis in India. He joined the company in 1997 when it was still CDC, and was responsible for setting up the Mumbai office. Today, he heads Actis's South Asian business.

With over 30 years of experience in the finance industry, including 19 years in private equity, he has led a number of successful investments, most notably Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, UTI Bank, Sterling Hospital, Paras Pharmaceuticals, AVTEC, and more recently IDFC. During his early years in finance, JM quickly realised that in order to add value, you need influence, which, in India, comes through relationships. And so that’s what he has proceeded to do – build solid relationships over time. His investment style is to leverage his relationships to help investee companies make significant operational improvements post investment, which has now become the philosophy for Actis in India and the rest of South Asia.

Prior to joining Actis, JM was Senior Vice President at Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd. (GVFL) in Ahmedabad, which he joined in its formative stage, helping it raise its first three funds. JM is a chemical engineer from IIT, Bombay, and holds a Diploma in Finance from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India.

Harsh Pais is a partner in the Trilegal’s corporate practice, focusing on M&A,private equity and funds. In the course of his practice, Harsh advises institutions and corporations extensively on cross border transactions, structured investments and financings. Harsh also advises sponsors in structuring and raising private equity/investment funds, and acts on transactional and regulatory matters for financial institutions, including banks, regulated non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) and foreign institutional investors (FIIs).

Himanshu is a Partner with BSR & Associates and has an experience of over 15 years. Himanshu advises clients on structuring of foreign investments, obtaining regulatory approvals, tax issues, exchange control matters and SEBI issues. He has rendered advisory services to various reputed private equity funds, real estate funds, and financial services entities.

He has also written various articles in professional journals and has also been a speaker at professional forums, including Masterclass Training sessions at Private Equity Conferences.

Jaganath Swamy joined HarbourVest in early 2013 to focus on primary investments in India and Southeast Asia.  

Jaganath joined HarbourVest from Northgate Capital in Delhi, where he was a principal with overall responsibility for developing and growing Indian fund investments and was co-lead for South East Asia investments.  Prior to that, Jaganath was a Founding Director of Ananta Capital, co-founding a specialized acquisition vehicle in the specialty and advanced materials space in India and led fundraising, negotiating with potential acquisition targets, and developing post-investment strategy. Prior to graduate school, he was a business analyst and junior associate at Mckinsey and Company in Mumbai and Singapore, focused on private equity and M&A projects, including the evaluation, due diligence, and monitoring of Indian partnerships.  He was also a team leader at Evalueserve Inc. in India, co-leading the financial services and investment advisory division to provide strategic financial research, private equity due diligence, and deal advisory services to clients in the U.S. and Europe.  

He received a Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi in 2001 and an MBA (with honors) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009.  He speaks Hindi, Telugu, and Oriya.

Karan Singh is one of the founding partners of Trilegal and is based at the Mumbai office. Hisprimary areas of practice are Private Equity and M&A.He also serves on the firm’s management committee.

Karan has been actively involved in several high profile private equity and venture capital investments, in-bound and outbound acquisitions as well asjoint ventures. He has advised clients in various sectors including real estate, technology, energy, telecom, food, manufacturing, trading and retail.

Kutty is an Investment Manager based in the firm’s London office.

Prior to joining Coller Capital in 2006, Kutty was Head of Development at Invicta Capital, a structured finance advisory firm focusing on film finance. Previously, he worked as an Analyst in the M&A team at Morgan Stanley in London, and as a Relationship Manager in the Corporate banking team at Standard Chartered in London.

Mathew Cyriac is Senior Managing Director at Blackstone since 2006. Prior to that, he was Head, Corporate Development and Strategy at iGate Global Solutions, a public listed IT services company, also serving as a board member of the company's joint venture companies. He has also held the position of Vice President of the Investment Banking Group at CSFB, LA and been a part of the Private Equity Group at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette in India, also serving as board member at two of DLJMB's India portfolio companies. A B.E. graduate, he has an MBA degree from IIMB, Bangalore where he also received the IIMB Gold Medal for graduating at the top of his MBA class.

Mukul Gulati is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Zephyr Peacock Management India Pvt Ltd.
 
Mukul has 18 years of experience in the investment business including private equity, investment research and general management. Mukul is responsible for overall leadership of the Zephyr Peacock investment team. He is engaged in deal sourcing and evaluation and serves on the Boards of several investee companies of Zephyr Peacock.
 
Previously, Mukul worked at Multex, where he was involved in setting up and managing the firm’s quantitative equity research business.
 
Mukul is a Charter member of the Bangalore chapter of TiE Global. He also serves as an advisor to TechnoServe India. TechnoServe is a global organization that supports entrepreneurship in developing economies.
 
Mukul received an MBA with honors from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He is a cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland, where he was a Dean’s Scholar at the Department of Economics.

Nainesh Jaisingh, Managing Director, SCPE, is a Partner with Standard Chartered’s Asian Private Equity business, and has been with the business since 2000.

In 2001, he co-founded Fin Ventures, a global Venture Capital Fund sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank, headquartered at Singapore. In 2003, Nainesh was instrumental in the launch of the Merlion India Fund, a JV between SCPE and Temasek, Singapore.

With SCPE, Nainesh has made and managed successful investments in several sectors - Software/BPO, Engineering, Pharmaceuticals, Shipbuilding, Auto Components, Power Generation, Travel, and Financial Services. He serves on the Board of Directors of several companies.

Nainesh is an Engineer with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Niten Malhan is a Managing Director with Warburg Pincus India Private Limited. He has been with Warburg Pincus since 2001 and focuses on the firm’s investment activities in India. He has been involved with a number of the firm's investments in India across various sectors including healthcare, infrastructure, real estate, and industrials. Previously, he was a director of business development at Stratum8 Corporation, a Silicon Valley start-up. He also worked as an Engagement Manager with McKinsey & Company in New Delhi, Jakarta and Boston. Mr. Malhan holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT-Delhi and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He serves as a director on the boards of ACB Limited, Dainik Bhaskar, Havells India, Lemon Tree Hotels, Metropolis Healthcare and Punj Lloyd.

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Partner of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels. He was previously with Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations. Earlier, he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business. Prior to that he was CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies, a BPO focused on the healthcare space. Sasha sits on the Board of Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited, Fractal Analytics, Algorhythm Tech, Akasaka Electronics Limited and Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors. He is a Charter Member at TiE Mumbai and also a past President of EO Mumbai. He holds a BBA from Strayer University and MMDP from IIM-A.

Pratima Divgi is an Investment Director.

Prior to joining Squadron Capital in February 2008, Pratima worked for four years with Capvent, a fund of private equity funds manager, based in Bangalore and Goa, India. Prior to her work with Capvent, she was a senior officer with ICICI Bank, one of India’s largest financial institutions, based in Goa.

Pratima holds a Master of Financial Services and a Bachelor of Commerce in Financial Accounting, Auditing and Taxation from Goa University.

In addition to Hindi, Pratima speaks Konkani and Marathi.

Rahul Bhasin is the Managing Partner of Baring Private Equity Partners India and a Senior Partner and Global Board Member of Baring Private Equity Partners (BPEP) International. Rahul is also a member of the Investment Committee at Baring Vostok Capital Partners and has also been an advisory board member of the ING group in India. He serves on the boards of various companies funded by Barings in India partnering with the entrepreneurs and senior management for building and growing their businesses. He has served as the Chairman of MphasiS BFL Limited and oversaw its transformation from a loss making to a profit making company, instituted ESOP schemes for talent retention, introduced transparency and corporate governance, facilitated a management change and drove a consolidation and bulking up strategy.  The company was recently acquired by EDS (and subsequently by HP) and enjoys a market cap in excess of $ 3.0 billion. He has served as the Chair of the Audit and Investment Committee of HOEC, one of the largest independent Oil & Gas players in India. He presently serves on the boards of Sphaera Pharma, Auro Mira Energy, JRG Securities, Integra Software Services.  

Prior to Barings, Rahul was in the Global Asset Allocation Committee of the Global Asset Management Group at Citibank based in London. Besides his experience in the developed markets, he has actively invested in the emerging markets in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia and India. In addition to equity markets, he has also managed a portfolio of derivative securities in the developed markets.  Prior to moving to London, he was the youngest Independent Treasurer within the Citibank system as Treasurer, Northern India. Rahul is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. 

Roopa Purushothaman is a Managing Director and Head of Research for Everstone, a premier India and South East Asia focused investor; and Founder of Avasara Academy, an educational institution focused on accelerating academic and leadership outcomes for India’s brightest girls.

Everstone has over 100 employees across 5 offices (Singapore, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Mauritius) and manages approximately $1.7 billion.  The firm follows an active and operational investing style with a focus on growth and buyout transactions.

Prior to joining Everstone, she worked as Vice President and Global Economist at Goldman Sachs, where she published papers on topics including long term growth, global trade and migration in the BRIC nations. She is a member of the Prime Minister’s advisory committee for JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission). She is also a member of The Forum of Young Global Leaders.

Roopa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Ethics, Politics and Economics and in International Studies from Yale University and a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the London School of Economics.

Mr. Singh joined Bain Capital in 2001. Prior to joining Bain Capital, Mr. Singh was the co-CEO of Medrishi.com, a healthcare services site. Prior to that, he was a consultant at Mercer Management Consulting where he consulted in the e-commerce, retail, and energy industries.

Mr. Singh received an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He received a BA from Harvard College.

Viswanathan Parameswar (Param) heads Adveq's emerging markets investment activities, which includes India and Africa. In addition, Param heads Adveq’s global secondary investment activities, leveraging his extensive involvement in Adveq’s investment activities in US, Europe, and Asia.

Param was earlier part of the Financial Advisory Group at Deloitte where he focused on M&A and corporate finance. Param started his private equity career at Societe Generale Private Equity and then at Rothschild in France. Prior to this, Param worked as a consultant for Wipro Technologies with companies in the financial services and telecom sectors across a number of geographies including US, UK and India.

Deepak I. Shahdadpuri is the Founder and Managing Director of BCP Advisors, advisors to the Beacon India Private Equity Fund ($320M under management including co-investment pool).  Prior to that he was Managing Director at private equity fund GEM India Advisors, and worked with Reuters Venture Capital and Bain & Company. Deepak is a FCA (ICAEW) and qualified as a UK Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young.   Deepak currently serves on the board of Baker's Circle, Bhayana Builders, Impresario, Indostar Capital Finance, Sula Wines, Saffronart, Vatika and Trak.  Deepak also serves on the Advisory Board of Dawn Capital, a UK focused VC Fund. Deepak has an MBA with distinction from INSEAD (Dean's List) and an LLB (Hons) from King's College London.

Rahul joined ICICI Prudential AMC in Nov 2010.

At ICICI Prudential AMC, Rahul is responsible for anchoring the Real Estate Business and driving team synergies.

Rahul has an overall work experience of around 20 years. His expertise and core competency has been in the in depth understanding of the real estate segment and evaluating and investing in real estate projects. He has also managed one of the largest and first FDI transactions that happened in the Indian real estate space in 2004.

Rahul, is a Chartered Accountant, and has also completed the Cost Accountancy and Intermediate level Company Secretary Course. Prior to ICICI Prudential AMC, he has been associated with companies like Arthur Anderson Corporate Finance, Ernst and Young Transaction Advisory Services, RSM Advisors Private Limited and till recently was associated with Sun Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

Rahul believes that his strong technical and analytical skills help him as a decision maker. In his leisure he likes reading fiction and watching movies & sports.

Mani is a Partner based in and responsible for the oversight of Quilvest’s Hong Kong office, from where he co-manages QS GEO PEP, Quilvest’s Global Emerging Opportunities Private Equity Program.  In addition, he sources and executes direct and co-investment opportunities primarily in Asia and Latin America as well as selectively in Central & Eastern Europe and Africa.

Prior to joining Quilvest, Mani worked at Alvarez & Marsal, a prominent crisis management and restructuring advisory firm, where he worked with creditors and distressed companies in various operational and financial turnaround situations across the United States and Latin America.  Prior to A&M, Mani worked as the Director of Finance and Strategic Planning for a communications provider in the Northeastern United States. His responsibilities included capital raising, M&A, partnerships, plan development, and product pricing.

Mani started his career in the Media & Communications and International investment banking practices of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, both in New York and Hong Kong, where he worked on a variety of high yield, M&A, restructuring, public and private equity transactions.  During his time at DLJ, Mani worked on transactions across the US, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Mani received his MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BBA with a concentration in finance from the University of Michigan.  Mani is a board member or observer on a number of Quilvest’s fund and direct investments.  In addition, Mani is an Advisory Council member of EMPEA, the Emerging Market Private Equity Association.

Mr Praveen P Kadle is the Managing Director & CEO of Tata Capital Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Sons Limited. Tata Capital is Tata’s foray into the financial services space covering products and services ranging from retail and commercial lending, distribution and broking, wealth management, investment banking and private equity.

Mr Kadle is an Hons. Graduate in Commerce & Accountancy from the Bombay University and has qualified as a Chartered Accountant, Cost & Works Accountant and Company Secretary

Mr Kadle has been working for the Tata’s for the last 21 years.  For the first  5 years, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Tata’s Joint Venture with IBM in India.  Thereafter, in 1996 he was transferred to Tata Motors Limited as the Vice President (Finance) and in the year 2001 he was promoted to the Board of Tata Motors Limited as Executive Director – Finance and Corporate Affairs.

Mr Kadle has played a major role in the turnaround and growth of Tata Motors. He was also instrumental in the turnaround and financial restructuring of the erstwhile Tata Finance Limited. While in Tata Motors, he was also instrumental in setting up and guiding operations of Tata Technologies and TELCON (a Tata Motors – Hitachi JV) which have become market leaders in the engineering design space and in the construction equipment business in India.

During his tenure at Tata Motors Mr Kadle was a part of the senior leadership team that managed the cross-border acquisitions like Daewoo Truck Company of S.Korea, Incat Technologies of UK and Jaguar-Land Rover of UK.  He also led the Fund raising programme of US$ 5 bn during this period.

Prior to his joining the Tata’s, Mr Kadle worked as the CEO and member of the Board of Garware-Wall Ropes Limited, a synthetic yarn, industrial fabric & synthetic cordage company having global operations with a consistent profit track record.

Mr Kadle is a Board member on various Tata and non-Tata companies.  He contributes to many industry and economic bodies both domestic and international.  These include, a position on the Advisory Board of Japan’s Institute for Indian Economic Studies (IIES) and as a member of the Advisory Board of Centre for Strategic Leadership - NUS Business School, Singapore. Additionally, he is also actively involved with various Public Charitable institutions notably as the Board Member and Honorary Treasurer of Child Rights and You (CRY).

Mr Kadle has received a number of awards in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Tata Motors Limited, which are : CNBC-TV18, the Country's best performing CFO in the Auto & Auto Ancillaries sector for 2006;   ‘The Best CFO of the year 2005’ in India by Business Today; The ‘CFO of the year 2004’ by IMA (formerly known as Economist Intelligence Unit) and has been recently inducted as Founding member to the CFO Hall of Fame in India.                                                                             

Gaurav Mathur is a Founding Managing Director at India Equity Partners, a $350 million India focused private equity fund. Previously he was a Principal with JPMorgan Partners (JPMP) in Singapore, where he helped run JPMP's Indian private equity portfolio. Prior to JPMP, he worked with the high-yield capital markets group at Deutsche Bank in London.

Gaurav serves on the boards of Ocean Sparkle, Ikya HR Services and A2Z Maintenance & Engineering Services Pvt Ltd. He has a management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Delhi.

Rajesh has over 17 years of investing experience including 12 years in private equity, a track record of over 25 PE investments and numerous exits.

Rajesh previously led the management of Milestone Religare Private Equity, a JV between Milestone and Religare, as its founding Managing Partner.  This fund was focused on providing growth capital to companies in Healthcare and Education sectors. Some of the representative investments include Resonance, HCG, Care ratings, KIMS Hospitals.

Earlier, Rajesh spent over 8 years with Intel Capital in India where he was responsible for 20 investments and has had full life cycle experience of private equity across different sectors and stages. Some of the representative investments include India Infoline, NIIT, Persistent Systems, FINO, Subex and Nipuna.

Rajesh started his career with ICICI where he spent 5 years across project finance, corporate finance and distressed debt restructuring. Rajesh is an MBA from IIM, Lucknow and B.Tech. from IIT, Bombay.

Padmanabh (Paddy) Sinha is the Managing Partner of the Tata Opportunities Fund. He has been the Chief Investment Officer & Senior Partner of the Tata Opportunities Fund since its inception in 2011.

He had previously been a private equity manager with Temasek Holdings and ICICI Venture for a decade and also has had entrepreneurial and investment banking experience prior to that.

The Tata Opportunities Fund has a unique mandate that includes tapping into propriety deal ideas from the US$100bn Tata group. The fund recently concluded its third closing for ~US$ 600mn with marquee global investors. Prior to this, Paddy was Managing Director – India at Temasek Holdings and was part of Temasek’s founding India team in 2004.

Paddy earlier had an entrepreneurial stint as founding team member & President of an e-learning company funded by ChrysCapital, Star TV and IFC, which he eventually sold to a listed Indian corporate. He has served on boards of many Indian companies including Bharti Infratel, Tata Sky, Punj Lloyd, Ginger Hotels.

Arjun Bawa is a Director of PineBridge Investments and joined the firm in 2006 at its headquarters in New York. Mr Bawa has been actively involved in investing in Asia for many years and relocated to the firm’s office in Singapore in 2012. He is responsible for sourcing, executing and monitoring private equity fund investments in Asia and is actively involved in all fund investment decisions on a global basis. Prior to joining PineBridge Investments, he worked at Allianz in Munich and New York as well as with Deutsche Bank in Singapore and across South-East Asia.

Sudhir is Chairman & MD of IDG Ventures India, a leading technology venture investor in India.  He specialises in identifying disruptive high growth technology firms, with a strong leadership team, at an infancy stage, and helps them grow rapidly with an eye for outsized financial returns to investors.

Since 1998 Sudhir and his team have led investments into 31 firms across Digital Consumer, Enterprise Software and Engineering / Medical Device Sectors.  Key investments include Mindtree Consulting (a global IT services play), Myntra (Fashion & Sports e-Commerce), Manthan (a global Analytics product play), Perfint (a global leader in image guided oncology), and Aujas (an EIR incubated global information risk services play).

In 2001, Sudhir was recognized by Red Herring as one of the leading venture capitalists in the country.  He has been named among the Top Ten IT Professionals by Dataquest and by Bloomberg UTV as ‘Visionary Venture Capitalist of the year in 2011’.

In addition to leading IDG Ventures India Advisors, Sudhir serves on the Board of Ascent Capital (a $ 350 Million PE Fund). He also served on the Executive Committee of Indian Venture Capital Association (IVCA), the Investment Committee of UTI Ventures, the Advisory Board of Westbridge Capital and on the Board of Advisors at N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurship, IIM Bangalore.  With over 30 years’ experience Sudhir has served at various leadership positions at HCL, Wipro and Infotech Enterprises as well as Country Head of Walden International, one of the first Venture Investors in India.

Sudhir holds a B.Tech in Engineering and an MBA Degree from FMS, Delhi.  His interests include wild life photography.

Shashank Singh is a MD of the India office of Apax Partners, having helped to start the office in 2007. Shashank joined Apax in London in 2004, as part of the Technology & Telecoms team, and has focused on investments in the telecoms and IT services / BPO spaces. His deals at Apax include iGATE Patni, TIM Hellas (#3 mobile operator in Greece), Weather Investments (portfolio of developed and developing market mobile operators), TDC (incumbent telecoms operator in Denmark), Bezeq (incumbent telecoms operator in Israel) and Synetrix (public authority-focused network integrator in the UK).

Prior to joining Apax Partners, Mr Singh spent four years as a strategy consultant with Monitor Company in their London office. His focus at Monitor was on leading client engagements in the telecommunications and high technology sectors.

Mr Singh serves as a Director on the Board of Patni Computer Systems Limited (NSE: PATNI) and an Observer on the Board of iGATE Corporation Inc. (Nasdaq: IGTE). In addition, he is an Independent Non-executive Director on the Board of Greatship India Limited, the offshore oilfield services company that is part of the largest private sector shipping group in India, Great Eastern Shipping (NSE: GESHIP).

Mr Singh has an MBA from Harvard Business School, from which he graduated as a Baker Scholar, a first class degree in Economics from Cambridge University and a BA (Honours) with distinction from St. Stephen’s College (University of Delhi).

Shobhit Agarwal heads the Capital Markets division of Jones Lang LaSalle, and is based out of the Mumbai office of the firm. The Capital Markets division advises & structures real estate investment transactions on behalf of realty funds, developers and investors. Shobhit has been with Jones Lang LaSalle since March 2000, with pan-India responsibility for the Capital Markets division. He has over 12 years of experience in the property finance and investment sector. He is responsible for overseeing major cross-border real estate transactions.

Over the past 12 years, he has worked with several large real estate developers, investors and funds advising them on strategic planning & investment strategies. He covers advisory, structuring joint ventures, equity raising and advising on disposals and acquisitions in core markets. His clients include Ascendas, India REIT, Kotak, Unitech, Hiranandani, Bata India, Turner Morrison, PVR, various government bodies and Indian & international institutional investors.

He has also been credited with solving problems creatively with new ideas, new methods and procedures within real estate as the structured investments business in India is comparatively new and developing.

Shobhit has a Bachelor of Engineering (Construction) degree from Centre For Environmental Planning And Technology, Ahmedabad, a Masters in Planning degree from School Of Planning And Architecture New Delhi, and a diploma in financial management from NMIMS (Narsee Monjee Institute Of Management Studies), Mumbai.

Mohit Ralhan is the Managing Partner of Indus Balaji Private Equity, a diversified fund with interests in early-stage ventures and growth capital across sectors. Currently, he serves on the boards of six companies spanning media, telecom, real estate and education. He is also a member of the Indus Balaji Investment Committee, having invested over US$ 75 million in companies through his career.

Prior to this, Mohit headed media investments at Barings Private Equity, where he executed deals in radio, commodities broking, and NBFC. He has been in the initial team of a greenfield public sector bank, where he headed strategy and was responsible for setting up the mid-market banking practice, the corporate liabilities book and SME offerings. He has also worked with one of the largest telcos in the country and advised the client on their expansion and JVs in the content management space.
 
He holds a MBA in Finance from the Faculty of Management Studies, and is an engineer from NSIT.

Devinjit Singh is a Managing Director focused on significant sized growth capital and buyout opportunities across sectors in India. He is based in Mumbai.

Since joining Carlyle in 2008, Mr. Singh has worked on several notable deals including a transaction with Indian brokerage and financial services firm, India Infoline.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Singh was Managing Director and Head of Citigroup's Mergers-& Acquisitions business in India. In this role, he led several landscape changing transactions including Tata's acquisition of Jaguar and Landrover from Ford, Wipro's acquisition of Infocrossing, the sale of Larsen and Toubro's RMC business to Lafarge and the sale of Punjab Tractors to Mahindra and Mahindra. In previous assignments atCitigroup, Mr Singh advised and led several capital raisings for India's leading corporates including HDFC, SBI, Axis Bank, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr Reddys, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland; M&M, Amtek Auto, Punj Lloyd and IVRCL.

Mr. Singh is a member of the India Advisory Board and the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

Mr Singh received his M.B.A. from The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, and has a B.A.(Honours) in mathematics from the University of Delhi.

Dr Kirit S. Parikh has a Doctor of Science in Civil Engineering and a Master's Degree in Economics from MIT, USA. He has been a Professor of Economics since 1967.

Widely recognized as architect of India’s Integrated Energy Policy Committee.  He was a Member of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) of five Prime Ministers of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Chandra Shekhar, V.P.Singh and Rajiv Gandhi.  

Honoured with Padma Bhushan by the President of India in March 2009. He is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and honorary life member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (on an average given to two persons a year in the world).

He was honoured as the most distinguished and illustrious alumni of the decade from India by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA in September, 2007.  He was conferred the Distinguished Alumnus Award by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur in September, 2007

In 1978 he was given the “Vikram Sarabhai Award” for Systems Analysis and Management. In 1999 he was given the "Visveswaraya Award" by the Engineers' Foundation in Kolhapur.   He is also a recipient of “Nayudamma Award” for contribution to the welfare of mankind through developments in the fields of Economics & Energy in February 2005.  

Founder Director (Vice Chancellor), Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai – An Advanced Research Institute from 1986 till 2000. In 1997-98, on sabbatical leave from the IGIDR, he was Special Economic Adviser to the Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York. From 1980-86, as Program Leader of the Food and Agricultural Program of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria. From 1960-80, he was Professor of Economics (and sometimes Head) of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), New Delhi.

Dr Parikh has authored, co-authored and edited 27 books in the areas of development planning and policy concerning planning, agricultural development, poverty, energy, environment, water resource management, trade and general equilibrium modeling.

He has also published numerous articles.

Saurabh leads the Institutional equities business at Ambit Capital as Head of Equities.

Prior to joining Ambit, he was with Execution Noble. Saurabh was the cofounder of Clear Capital, an equity research firm, in 2003. He sold Clear Capital in 2008 to Execution Noble and moved to India to set up their Institutional Equities business. During his tenure with Execution Noble in India, they were the highest ranked new entrant for research in the Asia money polls -2009.

Saurabh has done his BSc and MSc from the London school of Economics, London, UK. Saurabh also writes two fortnightly columns for Outlook Profit and VCCircle.

Sujan Hajra has over one and a half decades of hands-on expertise in applied economic policy research in diverse areas including securities market, trade, banking and finance. He has extensively contributed at the high level decision making processes as a pragmatic economic adviser. He has been part of deliberations of numerous committees and dialogues on economic issues with international and national agencies. He has published a number of articles on economic issues in referred journals and also authored a book. Sujan has excelled academically at premier national institutions and selected as a research fellow and also a national scholar (on two occasions).

His career objective is to reach the highest echelons of an avant-garde organisation by being the principal conduit for informed management decision making through leveraging of the core competencies in economic and financial analytics and perspectives, quantitative technical knowledge, regulatory and supervisory expertise and cogent communication skills.

His specialties include open-economy macroeconomics, international trade, development and finance.

Apurva has had a wide range of experiences in financial services, across principal investments, investment banking, leveraged finance and equity research – both in India and the United States. In addition, he has had operating experience as head of Marketing and Business Development at NuView, a U.S. based software developer. He joined IDFC Private Equity in 2009, prior to which he was a founding member and Head of the Mumbai office of Brevan Howard’s India Fund.

Prior to that, Apurva was at ICICI Venture, where he completed a variety of transactions including growth equity, leveraged buyout and royalty financing. In the United States, Apurva worked at leading banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Along the way he co-founded India Index Fund LLC, the first pooled-investment vehicle offering index fund investing in India for overseas investors.

Apurva received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, is a member of the aInstitute of Chartered Accountants of India, and a Founding Board Member of the Association of Senior Living India (ASLI). His wife and he enjoy fusion and classical music, cooking, scuba diving and travelling.

R. Gopalakrishnan (Gopal to his friends) has been a professional manager for 45 years from 1967 onwards: 31 years in Unilever and 14 years in TATA.

He had served in Jeddah as Chairman of Unilever Arabia, in Bangalore as Managing Director of Brooke Bond Lipton India, and finally as Vice Chairman of Hindustan Lever. Currently, he is Director, Tata Sons Ltd.  He is the chairman of Tata Auto-Component Systems and Rallis India, the vice chairman of Tata Chemicals, and is a director of Tata Power and Tata Technologies.  He is an independent director on the boards of Akzo Nobel India and Castrol India.

Gopal studied physics at St Xavier’s Calcutta, engineering at IIT Kharagpur and attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He is a Past President of All India Management Association.

In 2007, his first book, “THE CASE OF THE BONSAI MANAGER: lessons for managers on intuition”, was published by Penguin India.

In 2010, his second book entitled “WHEN THE PENNY DROPS: learning what is not taught” was published, by Penguin India, followed by Hindi and Tamil editions.

In 2012, his third book “WHAT THE CEO REALLY WANTS FROM YOU: the 4 A s for managerial success” was published by Harper Collins India.

He has delivered guest lectures and written articles.  He has designed and taught an unusual course entitled LWNT-Learning What’s Not Taught at Tata Management Training Centre, Pune, and at Indian B-schools.

Shankar Narayanan is a Managing Director responsible for leading growth capital investments for Carlyle in India. He is based in Mumbai.

Since joining Carlyle in 2004, Mr. Shankar Narayanan has led investments in Claris Lifesciences, Elitecore Technologies, Repco Home Finance, Tirumala Milk Products, Visen Industries, Value and Budget Housing Corporation, Edelweiss Financial Services, South Indian Bank and Infotech Enterprises. He was also actively involved in the managing and exit of Carlyle investments in Newgen Knowledge Works, Financial Software & Systems, Learning Mate Solutions, QuEST and Sharekhan.

Mr. Narayanan is currently on the Boards of Infotech Enterprises, Elitecore Technologies, Cyberoam Technologies, Repco Home Finance, Visen Industries and Tirumala Milk Products Private Limited. Previously he served on the Boards of Claris Lifesciences, Value and Budget Housing Corporation, Financial Software & Systems, Learning Mate Solutions, QuEST, Newgen Knowledge Works & Sharekhan.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Shankar Narayanan spent six years at Hathway Investments in Mumbai and during that time served as Managing Director and CEO. He was also with Deutsche Bank Capital Partners, based in Hong Kong, as a Director covering South Asia and India. Mr. Narayanan has led or been associated with a number of prominent private equity investments in India, including Johnson Tiles, Exide Industries, Hathway Cable, Asianet Satellite Communications, Pushpa Polymers, Tata Infomedia, and AFL Limited. He had served on the Board of Directors of all these Companies. Prior to Hathway Investments, Mr. Shankar Narayanan worked at Citibank in Mumbai.

He received a Post Graduate Diploma in management from XLRI Jamshedpur where he was a Gold Medalist and stood first in the graduating class in the area of finance and accounting, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Mohit has over 12 years of Transaction Services experience of working closely with a cross section of clients - both Corporate and Private Equity buyers.  He has spent 3 years in London advising clients in UK and Europe on transactions in Consumer and Industrial markets, Retail, and services related sectors. 

He has extensive experience of working with Private Equity houses on their investments and understands the drivers that influence these investments.  He specialises in Financial due diligence and has been involved in various, pre-deal assessments, data rooms, full due diligences, listing engagements and final negotiations for various transactions.  He also has a lot of experience of advising sellers on sell-side assistance and vendor due diligence engagements.

Tushar is chief India economist for Goldman Sachs in Mumbai and is a senior member of the Asia Economics, Commodities and Strategy Research team. He has written thematic pieces on a wide range of topics, including India's growth potential, urbanization, infrastructure, demographics, and developing the corporate bond market in India. Tushar joined Goldman Sachs in 2006 and was named managing director in 2011.

Prior to joining the firm, Tushar was an economist at the International Monetary Fund for five years in the Middle-East, African, and Fiscal Affairs departments. He has published papers on international trade, monetary and fiscal policy.

Tushar is a member of a policy group on capital flows for infrastructure financing led by the Reserve Bank of India.

Tushar earned a PhD and MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Mr. Sunil Rohokale spearheads the ASK Group initiatives along with the subsidiary companies.

Prior to joining ASK Group, Mr. Sunil Rohokale worked with ICICI Home Finance, the largest mortgage company in India and a wholly owned subsidiary of ICICI bank, as the Managing Director and CEO. He was a member of the core team that started the mortgage business of ICICI Bank in 1999. Under his leadership, the bank achieved a leadership position in the business. He is amongst the rare breed of professionals with experience in assets, liabilities and investments. Mr. Sunil Rohokale enjoys strong credentials in setting up new businesses and building strong professional teams that deliver results.