Abhishek has 11 years of experience in private equity. He has played a key role in investing and portfolio management of 15 companies and has also managed a few exits. Previously was Principal at India Equity Partners (IEP), a USD 350 mn India focused private equity fund. Served on the boards of IKYA Human Capital, ILFS Education, Sagar Ratna Restaurants, RG Stone and Axiss Dental. Also played a significant role in investments in Manappuram Finance and ColdEx. Prior to IEP, he was with the SUN Group, an emerging markets private equity fund with USD 2 bn in AUM. Abhishek serves as a member of the economic affairs sub-committee of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). Holds Management degree from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta and Engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.

 Akhil has over 18 years of private equity experience in India, and about 25 years of experience in financial services including investing in both, listed and unlisted asset classes.

Akhil is the Managing Partner of Tata Capital Growth Fund, a US$ 225+ million private equity fund focussed on investing in high growth companies. Under Akhil’s leadership, Tata Capital Growth Fund has invested in 9 companies across financial services, technology, consumer, pharma and manufacturing sectors. He also sits on the Board of several portfolio companies including Star Health & Allied Insurance, Janalakshmi Financial Services, Home First Finance Company and Agile Electric Sub Assembly. He is a member of EMPEA and former member of Executive Committee of IVCA (Indian Venture Capital Association)

Prior to joining Tata Capital Growth Fund in 2009, Akhil was one of the founding members of Baring Private Equity Partners, a leading Indian private equity fund and was involved in all stages of the PE lifecycle, from creating an investment proposition, fund raising, investment and divestment. While at Baring, Akhil completed over 15 transactions and 10 exits delivering attractive returns to investors. He served on the Board of Directors of various portfolio companies and was also a Member/ Chairman of Compensation / Audit Committees.

Prior to Baring, Akhil was a founding member of India's first private sector mutual fund ITI Pioneer AMC (Now Franklin Templeton) where he was responsible for researching and analyzing the pharmaceutical, software and automobile sectors.

Akhil began his career in 1990 with ANZ Grindlays Bank.

Akhil is a mechanical engineer with an MBA from the University of Delhi. He has completed the prestigious Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Prior to founding CX Partners, Amit was a partner at Duma Capital since April 2006, a fund started by principals from Soros Fund Management and Duquesne Capital with ~US$400mn in capital. He managed the Global Equity portfolio including a significant allocation of capital to investments to India. Prior to Duma, Amit co-managed the distressed and event-driven portfolio at Clinton Group, which averaged US$600mn in allocated capital and approximately US$1.0bn in market value. Amit also co-founded 2 technology companies with funding from some of the well known investors in the world, including Ram Shriram, The Washington Post, Visa International and Fox Paine among others. Amit started his career at JP Morgan in fixed income technology and quantitative analysis.

Amit is a MBA (highest honors) from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

Mr. Chandra joined Bain Capital as a Managing Director in early 2008, and is a part of the firm’s leadership team in Asia.  He is an engineer by training having received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from VJTI, Bombay University, post which he worked at India's leading engineering & construction firm, Larsen & Toubro. He then received his MBA from Boston College and was awarded the school's Distinguished Alumni in 2007.

Prior to joining Bain Capital, Mr. Chandra spent most of his professional career at DSP Merrill Lynch, a leading investment bank in India. At the firm, he had direct oversight of its Global Markets & Investment Banking business, which included the firm's substantial principal businesses. He retired from DSP Merrill Lynch in 2007 as its Board Member & Managing Director, to move to Private Equity.  

Mr. Chandra was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007 and was named Next Generation Philanthropic Leader of the Year by Forbes in 2013.  He is currently a Member of the Board of Directors of Genpact, L&T Finance, Tata Investment Corporation and Emcure Pharmaceuticals, and recently retired from the Board of Piramal Enterprises. He is also active in India’s not for profit space and serves as a Trustee of two of the Tata Trusts –Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust & Jamshetji Tata Trust, Founder & Trustee of Ashoka University, and as a Trustee/Board Member of The Akanksha Foundation (providing education to less privileged children) and GiveIndia (India's leading philanthropic exchange).

Amit is an Executive Director in Nomura India Investment Banking and has 14 years of investment banking and corporate finance experience in India. He is responsible for coverage of Real Estate and Infrastructure sectors and Financial Institutions Group (FIG) in India. Amit has been associated with several large capital raising situations including REIT products with DLF Assets, Religare, L&T, IL&FS etc.

Prior to joining Nomura, Amit worked with KPMG Corporate Finance for 7 years advising on cross-border M&A and private equity capital raising transactions across sectors including financial services, industrials, real estate, etc

Amit is a Chartered Financial Analyst, Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary by qualification. He is also associated with Indian Institute of Management (IIM) for guest lectures / recruitment processes.

Anand Prasanna joined Morgan Creek in December 2012 and is currently a Director based in the firm's Shanghai office. As part of Morgan Creek's Asia team, Mr. Prasanna will be covering the firm's activities in private investments in Asia with a particular focus on India. Prior to joining Morgan Creek, he was a senior investment professional at Squadron Capital, a Hong Kong-based private equity group focused on the Asia Pacific region. He has had extensive work experience, including high profile firms McKinsey and Sequoia Capital in India, where he was able to build a strong local network amongst companies, entrepreneurs and investors.

Mr. Prasanna earned a Master of Business Administration from the Fore School of Management in New Delhi, and earned his BBA in Business Administration from the University of Kerala.

Vice President for Investment Funds, Brooks Preston overseas a department which has committed more than $4.4 billion to dozens of emerging market private equity funds since 1987. The Funds team currently manages approximately 50 financial commitments to private equity funds in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Emerging Europe and has the intention to grow the existing portfolio.

Before coming to OPIC, Brooks was the co-managing partner of the Virgin Green Fund Emerging Markets and a member of its Investment Committee. Prior to founding VGF EM, Brooks was the Principal at Wolfensohn & Company, an emerging market private equity firm led by former World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn where Brooks focused on low carbon energy investments in global emerging markets. From 2003 to 2008, Brooks had a number of senior management roles at BP plc in emerging markets, including head of global business development and M&A for BP Solar, and chief of staff to a Group Vice President running 10 large downstream oil businesses with $450 million in EBIT operating across 100 countries, most of them emerging markets.

Brooks was Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of Natural Resources and Environment and Acting Deputy Under Secretary for Forestry at USDA in the Clinton/Gore Administration. He wrote 15 laws passed by the U.S. Senate as Professional Staff Member at the Senate Committee Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where he covered forestry. Brooks also managed energy and environment issues for Senator Patrick Leahy.

Brooks has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

 Deepak I. Shahdadpuri is the Founder and Managing Director of DSG Consumer Partner and Beacon India Private Equity Fund. Deepak has over 15 years of private equity and venture capital experience and is an active angel investor focusing on consumer businesses with a strong emphasis on food and beverage value chain. Before this, Deepak held senior roles at Gem India, Reuters VC, Bain & Company and Ernst & Young. Deepak is on the board of Baker's Circle, Impresario, Eazy Diner, Exito Gourmet, India Lends, Indostar Capital, Indian Home Gourmet, Mswipe, Saffronart, Saraf Foods, Sula Wines and Veeba Food. Deepak’s investment experience also includes RBL Bank, OYO Rooms, Cleartrip, Redmart, F&B Asia and Furtado’s School of Music.

Deepak serves on the board of Magic Bus, a non-profit organization helping develop underprivileged children through sports, and on the advisory board of Dawn Capital, a UK focused Venture Capital Fund. He has an MBA (Distinction) from INSEAD where he graduated on the Dean’s list, a LLB (Hons) from King's College London and a FCA from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England & Wales.

@dishahdadpuri

Gautam is Sector leader, Asset Management for PwC in India and leads the PwC Financial Services Tax and Regulatory team.

He has a varied experience of over 28 years. Prior to joining PwC in September 2003, he had stints with two leading accounting and tax consultancy firms, which was followed by a long association with an independent practice founded by him.

In the past few years, he has been focussed on working with players in the financial services space with a particular emphasis on the asset management sector, and also in providing strategic tax inputs to large multinational as well as domestic Indian players.

Gautam is a regular speaker at seminars, both in India and overseas and a contributor to the media. He has been a member of the National Direct Tax Committee of The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the American Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Gautam is a Chartered Accountant, has post-graduated in law and holds a degree in financial management.

Gopal is the Founder Chairman & MD of TVS Capital Funds Limited, with the vision of supporting and nurturing India’s mid-cap businesses into world-class companies. It manages assets of over Rs 1,100 Cr, and which makes it amongst the largest domestically raised funds in India. He has been a strong advocate of participation of domestic capital pools in private equity and venture capital funds, and actively supports initiatives for that cause as a Vice Chairman of IVCA (Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association).

Gopal was the Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Committee for Private Equity & Venture Capital for the fiscal year 2010-2011. He is also the Director in TVS & Sons Ltd, the holding company, and a member of the Board of several Group Companies.An entrepreneur at heart, Gopal is also actively involved in the promotion of entrepreneurship as an angel investor. He is a founding member of The Chennai Angels, and is closely associated TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) where he provides guidance to the budding entrepreneurs on incubating businesses. Gopal earned a B.Com from Loyola College, Chennai and an MBA from University of Michigan, US.

@GopalSri

Jaganath Swamy joined HarbourVest in 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 Southeast Asia investments.  Previously, 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.  His prior experience also includes McKinsey and Company in Mumbai and Singapore, and Evalueserve Inc., in India.

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.

Jane Rowe heads Teachers’ Private Capital, the private equity arm of Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. She is also responsible for the organization’s international strategy pertaining to its expanding physical presence and the management of the Long Term Equities group. Ms. Rowe serves on the board of Cadillac Fairview, Teachers’ wholly-owned real estate subsidiary, and she is the chair of the Investments Division Credit and Counterparty Committee.

Prior to joining Teachers' in October 2010, she was Executive Vice-President, Special Accounts Management and Retail Credit Risk at Scotiabank. Previously, she held senior roles at Scotia Merchant Capital Corporation, the bank's Canadian private equity fund, was President and CEO of RoyNat Capital Inc., Scotiabank's wholly-owned mid-market merchant bank, and was President and CEO of Scotia Mortgage Corporation.

Ms. Rowe received a B.Comm. (Hons) from Memorial University, an MBA from York University's Schulich School of Business, and has ICD.D certification from the Institute of Corporate Directors. She is an Advisory Board Member of Memorial University's School of Business, an International Advisory Board Member of York University's Schulich School of Business and is on the Board of United Way Toronto.

Karan Singh is one of the founding partners of Trilegal and is based at the Mumbai office. His primary 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 as joint ventures. He has advised clients in various sectors including real estate, technology, energy, telecom, food, manufacturing, trading and retail.

Mahesh Murthy is a founding partner at Seedfund, and has over 26 years of marketing and communications experience, of which 15 years are in online marketing. Mahesh has worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV.

He moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners (later, USWeb/CKS) as Creative Director, GM and Partner – where he helped launch the first commercial version of Yahoo in 1995 and the Earth’s Biggest Bookstore campaign for Amazon.com in 1997. Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, till its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. He also set up Pinstorm in Bombay which is today among the world's leading digital marketing firms.

Mahesh has a passion for early-stage investing and teamed up with Pravin Gandhi and Bharati Jacob (ex-Infinity) in 2006 to set up Seedfund, today a leading early-stage venture capital fund in India.

Prior to co-founding Kedaara Capital Advisors, Manish served as a Senior Managing Director of Temasek Holdings, where he founded their India office in early 2004 and headed all of their investments and other activities in India. He also held multiple responsibilities in Temasek Singapore. He was a core member of its senior leadership team and a key member of Temasek Holding’s Senior Management Committee (SMC), and it’s Senior Investment & Divestment Committee (SIDC). Prior to joining Temasek, he was a Partner at McKinsey and Company. and had been a part of their New York, Cleveland and Mumbai offices. He has also worked at Goldman Sachs and at the World Bank. He is an active member of the Young Presidents’ Organization and was named a Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum in 2005. In 2007, he was profiled as one of the “25 hottest young executives in India” by Business Today. Manish is a graduate of Dartmouth College and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.

@RealManishK

M.K. Sinha (“MK”) is an investment professional with over 24 years of experience. He is currently the Managing Partner & CEO, IDFC Alternatives Limited, one of the
largest multi-asset class fund managers in India with ~USD 3.4 billion under management. Earlier, MK was the President & CEO of IDFC Project Equity (2007-2012), and was responsible for setting up and managing the Infrastructure asset class. MK joined IDFC Limited in 2005 as an Executive Director and was responsible for
Project Finance & Business Development.

Prior to joining IDFC, MK worked with the General Electric Company in the Structured Finance Group for over 10 years in various locations – Stamford (USA), London, Hong Kong and Singapore. Before that, MK worked with Bank of America and SBI Capital Markets in the Corporate Finance and Investment Banking areas respectively. MK holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a B.Tech (Hons.) in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Navita has been active in the Financial Services space in India during the last 2 decades. In the current role, she is the Chief Executive Officer of IL&FS Trust Company (Group Company of one of India’s largest Infrastructure Group - IL&FS). Over the last few years, she has led the Company to develop the largest integrated Trustee platform for Corporates raising funds from Indian Capital Markets and for servicing their long term borrowing programmes.

The Company has since grown to become the largest non Bank Trustees in India, administering over USD 80 billion in assets across a gamut of Corporate Trust services. Her Specialties include Structuring advisory to Infrastructure and Financial sector, Multi- Family Office, Succession Planning and Family Governance Structures for UHNIs, Wealth & Private Banking, Investment Advisory and Consumer Banking.

Previously, Navita was with Axis Bank for almost a decade where she held several key positions. She has led various businesses ranging from Family Office Services, Wealth & Global Private Banking as also Priority Banking and Financial Advisory Services at the Bank. Development and implementation of differentiated banking solutions for mass/ affluent segments across Consumer Banking businesses in India has been her forte.

Early in her career, Navita had a successful stint with KPMG, India in Management Assurance division where she handled several key clients for the firm including Banks and Large Corporates. She has completed her education from University of Delhi with specialisation in Financial Management and is an alumnus of IIM Kolkata with specialization in International Business.

Neelkanth Mishra is the India Equity Strategist for Credit Suisse, and is rated among the best analysts in India in Institutional Investor and AsiaMoney polls. He also covers Metals & Mining stocks. He has earlier worked on Indian Pharmaceuticals, Taiwan IC design, semiconductor foundries and Asian tech strategy research when based in Mumbai, Singapore and Taipei. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, he was a Senior Technical Architect with Infosys Technologies. He has also worked with Hindustan Lever Limited and has been an entrepreneur. He is a gold medallist from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, graduating in Computer Science and Engineering, and was ranked fourth in the prestigious entrance exam to the IITs. He is currently based in Mumbai.

Nikhil Vora is the Founder and CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures; India’s first domestic consumer centric venture fund. Nikhil was earlier the Managing Director and Head of Research at IDFC Securities, and has been regarded as one of the strongest analytical minds in the country. The core of Sixth Sense lies in the belief that the next big wave of dysfunctional growth will be led by players who are going to be driven by completely different skill sets / capabilities and not necessarily capital. Sixth Sense has invested in ETHOS (India’s largest luxury retail watch chain) and CROSSROADS (India’s largest Road Side Assistance Company).  Sixth Sense philosophy lies in investing in the Consumer of Tomorrow…Today!!!

Nikhil has been invited by the “Nestle Global Consumer Board” and the “Regional CFO forum” to give a presentation on the potential roadmap for Nestle India. He has also evolved a strategic road-map for Hindustan Unilever, Aditya Birla Group, Marico, Godrej etc. His research has been accredited by some of the largest global funds like Capital, Fidelity, Alliance Bernstein, Putnam, Schroder’s etc. Nikhil has been rated by Asia Money / Institutional Investors consistently for being amongst the best analytical minds in the country. In the Asia Money polls 2012, Nikhil was voted as India’s No.1 analyst. He also has the rare distinction of being voted Asia’s Best Analyst by the Wall Street Journal in the same year.  Along with advising clients, he also has been a venture capital investor and on the board of a few of his investee companies. Some of the earlier Venture Investments made by Nikhil Vora in his personal capacity includes - Bewakoof India, BVG India, Cloudseed Legal (www.Rainmaker.co.in), Parag Milk (Go Cheese), Infinite Analytics, Intellisys Technologies, Kangaroo Kids, One97 (PayTm), Mannash Lifestyle (www.purplle.com), Reznext Solutions, Rooms Tonight, Technology Frontiers, Tarnea Technologies and Vini Cosmetics (Fogg Deo). A post-graduate in Management, Mr. Vora was a member participant at the Future Leaders Program at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, London. He was also bestowed with the ‘Thought Leadership’ award by IDFC Ltd.

Nilesh Kothari has 23 years of corporate finance, underwriting and treasury experience in tech, consulting and financial services. Prior to this he was the M.D. - Ventures and Acquisitions at Accenture plc., a $30 Billion global technology and consulting company. Previously he was CFO of Accenture Credit Services, HeroBPO and Systems America.

He has deep operational experience in building several large businesses and creating successful exits like Zenta. He has experience of Structured Finance and Ratings at ICRA (A Moody’s Associate) and Debt Funds Management at JM Mutual Fund. He has a master of management Studies (MMS) degree from BITS, Pilani and AICWA.

Nishant Parikh is a partner based in Trilegal’s Mumbai office, and regularly represents a broad range of private equity funds, hedge funds, banks and financial institutions on complex corporate transactions, with a particular emphasis on cross-border transactions.

Nishant’s practice focuses on advising clients in evaluating, structuring and negotiating private equity investments and acquisitions, structured financing/investments, restructuring existing investments, exits with strong experience on implementing exit strategies in contentious or distressed situations, and M&A transactions. Of late, he has been involved in effectively strategizing, structuring and successfully implementing exit strategies for some of the biggest funds and financial institutions in connection with their Indian investments. He has extensive experience across several sectors (with particular focus on real estate, banking and financial services, IT/e-commerce, agribusiness in addition to broader manufacturing and services sectors), advising on regulatory issues that typically arise on Indian deals and negotiating with Indian promoters.  Nishant has acted as counsel on numerous headline making transactions over the past decade.

Nishant’s clients include The Blackstone Group, The D. E. Shaw Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Standard Chartered Bank, Farallon Capital, TPG, 3i Group, Sithe Global, Citadel Investment Group, Nomura, UBS, Black River Asset Management and Citigroup.

Padmanabh (Paddy) Sinha is the Managing Partner for the flagship private equity fund of the Tata group - Tata Opportunities Fund. Prior to joining Tata Capital as a founding partner of the Tata Opportunities Fund, Mr. Sinha was the Managing Director for India at Temasek Holdings. He was part of Temasek's founding India team in 2004 and during his tenure at Temasek also led global special projects for Temasek. He has worked with ICICI Venture previously as well as an entrepreneur where he was the President of an e-learning company funded by ChrysCapital, Star TV and International Finance Corporation, which he eventually sold to a listed Indian corporation. He has served on several corporate boards, including select Tata companies.

The Tata Opportunities Fund is a USD 600 million third party private equity fund which invests in select Tata group entities as well as other independent Indian businesses. The Fund's investees benefit both from its capital as well as from access to the Tata group's global reach and wide ranging long established industry presence. The fund is sector and stage agnostic and invests in both minority and control deals.

Paresh is the Founder and Managing Partner of ValueQuest Capital LLP. ValueQuest Capital is a boutique investment management firm specializing in identifying listed businesses with strong competitive advantage (“Moats”) run by able and honest managers.

Paresh has over 21 years of experience in investment management and has been involved in many transactions both in private equity and public equities including majority interest transactions and minority interest transactions.

Prior to ValueQuest, Paresh was the Head of Religare Global Asset Management (a multi boutique asset management firm with AUM of USD 19.6 billion). During his tenure he led the majority interest transactions with both Landmark Partners (Pioneers and leaders in the private equity and real estate secondary space, with the AUM of USD 12.5 billion), and Northgate Capital (leading private equity and venture capital firm with global presence). He was also the founder Managing Director of Evolvence Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd. and was also an Investment Principal with Infinity Ventures.

Over the course of his career he has been on investment committees and boards of various portfolio companies. Earlier, he was on the investment committee of IL&FS Private Equity – Leverage India Fund, Ascent India Fund, JM Financial India Fund, and the advisory board of IL&FS Private Equity – Leverage India Fund, NYLIM Jacob Ballas II & III, and Baring India Fund II. He has also served on the operating committee of Landmark Partners and Northgate Capital.

He is a qualified CFA (AIMR, USA), Chartered Accountant (India), Cost Accountant (India), Company Secretary (India) and Bachelor of Commerce from Mumbai University.

Parth Gandhi is Senior Partner and Managing Director at AION India Investment Advisors Private Limited. Prior to that Mr. Gandhi was President of Private Equity at ICICI Venture Funds Management Company Limited. Mr. Gandhi was a key member of the team at ICICI Venture
responsible for establishing the strategic partnership with Apollo and in developing AION’s strategy. Mr. Gandhi brings over a decade of investing experience in India.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Gandhi has invested in multiple Indian companies and has served on the board of directors of an array of listed and unlisted companies based in India, USA and Europe. His investments have been in listed and unlisted companies in the form of equity, mezzanine and senior debt.

In addition to his investment activities, Mr. Gandhi is a charter member of TiE Global (The Indus Entrepreneurs) and an active member of The Explorers Club and ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India). In previous jobs Mr. Gandhi was a Managing Director at Navigator Capital Advisors Limited and prior to that was a Consultant with Ernst and Young.

Mr. Gandhi has an MBA from Michigan State University and a BE from University of Mumbai.

Mr. Prasun Gajri is the Chief Investment Officer of HDFC Life.

Mr. Gajri joined HDFC Life in April 2009 with a rich experience of 14 years in investments and banking industry. He started his career in 1995 with Citibank and was associated with it for over 6 years delivering various roles. He joined Tata AIG Life Insurance Company in October 2001 to start the investment function and stayed there until April 2009, the last role being that of the Chief Investment Officer.

He holds a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad and is also a CFA Charterholder.

Promeet Ghosh joined Temasek in 2012 and is currently Managing Director, India, at Temasek Holdings Advisors India Pvt. Ltd.

Prior to Temasek, Promeet spent 20 years as an investment banker. He was involved as a partner in setting up an entrepreneurial venture to provide M&A and advisory services to mid-sized corporates in India. Promeet was also a Managing Director at DSP Merrill Lynch Limited, the Investment Banking arm of Bank of America in India. During his 18-year stint with DSP Merrill Lynch, he held several senior positions including Head, General Industries Group and Head, Corporate Finance Group. Since 2008, he has also been responsible for senior relationships with large conglomerates.

Promeet holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and a Bachelor of Engineering from Regional Engineering College Trichy, India.

Rahul Bhasin is the Founder and Managing Partner of Baring India, and a Senior Partner and Global Board Member of Baring Private Equity Partners (BPEP) International. He is also a member of the Investment Committee of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, and has been an Advisory Board member of the ING Group in India. He has crafted the strategy and execution processes for the investments by the Predecessor Funds since his joining in 1997.

Mr. Bhasin served as the Chairman of Mphasis Limited (now a Hewlett-Packard subsidiary) and oversaw its transformation from a 120-man, US$ 6 million revenue, loss-making company into a 43,000 employee, US$ 1.2 billion revenue, US$ 200 million net profit-making enterprise. In addition, for most of the past two decades, he has served as Chairman or member of the boards of RMZ Corp, JRG Securities (now renamed as Inditrade Capital), Secova, PharmArc, and Auro Mira Energy, among many others. He has also served as the Chair of the Audit and Investment Committee of HOEC, one of the largest independent Oil & Gas players in India. As a senior member of the Baring India team, he has spoken at various conferences in India and overseas, and is a member of the ‘CEO Forum’ at The Economist corporate network, and a charter member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). His views are regularly sought by the media in India. He presently serves on the boards of Sphaera Pharma, Auro Mira Energy, and RMZ Corp.

Prior to Baring India, Mr. Bhasin joined Citibank in London as a member of the Global and Emerging Market Asset Allocation Committee of the Global Asset Management Group, where he was responsible for asset allocation on a sector and regional basis for all global portfolios. He has actively invested in and managed funds across various asset classes including derivatives in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, and India. He oversaw and drove business start-ups across multiple geographies in different asset management business. Prior to moving to London, He was the youngest Independent Treasurer to date at Citibank, managing the treasury for Northern India. He has been a public spokesperson on matters of economic policy and administrative efficiency and efficacy, and has given guest lectures at several educational institutions including Wharton, Harvard, and his own alma mater, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Mr. Bhasin has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, Asia’s premier business school.

Rehan Yar Khan is Founder & Managing Partner of Orios Venture Partners, an early stage India technology venture capital firm, currently investing from its Fund II predominantly in consumer focused startups. Orios' portfolio includes Yumist, PrettySecrets, IntelligenceNode, PharmEasy and ZipGo. Rehan has previously led investments in OlaCabs and Druva. Rehan has been an entrepreneur since 1992 building 3 companies and was also closely involved in the establishment of Indian Angel Network and Harvard Angels.

@rehanyarkhan

Ronnie Screwvala is a first generation entrepreneur who pioneered Cable TV in India, built one of the largest toothbrush manufacturing operations and went on to create a Media & Entertainment conglomerate - UTV - spanning Television, Broadcasting, Digital, Mobile and Motion Pictures, which he divested to The Walt Disney Company in 2012

Demonstrating an innate ability to merge creativity with commerce, Newsweek termed him the Jack Warner of India, Esquire rated him one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st Century and Fortune as Asia’s 25 most powerful.

Onto his second innings, Ronnie is driven by his interest in championing Entrepreneurship in India and is also focused through Unilazer to build his next set of ground up businesses in high growth and impact sectors. His more recent commitment is also to build Sports with lending first mover and support to Kabaddi and Football.

Ronnie is also passionate about Social Welfare and is active along with his wife Zarina as Founder Trustees of The Swades Foundation, which operates with the single minded focus of empowering one million lives in Rural India every 5-6 years through a unique 360 degree model with verticals in Water, Sanitation, Health, Nutrition, Community Mobilization, Education, and most importantly Agriculture & Livelihood, to lift them out of poverty permanently.

Sanjay is a Co-founder & Managing Partner at Blume Ventures (www.blumeventures.com). Blume has emerged as one of India's leading early-stage funds, having invested in over 50 startups since its inception in late 2010.

Blume's portfolio includes Taxiforsure (acquired by Olacabs), Zipdial (acquired by Twitter), Qubecell (acquired by Boku), Grey Orange Pte Lte, Mettl, Webengage, Hotelogix, Exotel, Rolocule Games, and Carbon Clean Solutions, amongst others. Many of Blume’s portfolio companies have secured follow-on financing from top tier global VCs including Tiger Global, Accel, Matrix, Bessemer, Cisco Ventures, to name a few.

Prior to Blume, Sanjay was also an active angel investor through Mumbai Angels. His angel investments include Inmobi, Appsdaily (formerly Onward Mobility), Little Eye Labs (acquired by Facebook), Tonbo Imaging and Svasti amongst others.

Sanjay’s experience spans the US and India, and ranges from management consulting (PwC and IBM Global Services), product marketing and operations (Sun Microsystems) and angel investing (thru Mumbai Angels). Most recently, prior to founding Blume, he co founded Loxodrome, a legal outsourcing company with dual-shore operations in San Francisco and Pune, India. Early in his career, Sanjay supported the growth of Kanbay (Nasdaq IPO in ’04), then acquired by Cap Gemini for $1.25BL in ‘06.

Sanjay has earned an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management and also holds an undergraduate major in Information Systems from BITS, Pilani.

@sanjaynath

Mr. Sanjay Kukreja is a Managing Director at ChrysCapital and is part of the core team at ChrysCapital that helped the firm scale from a startup to India’s leading private equity firm with over $2.5 billion under management in fourteen years. He joined ChrysCapital in April 2000 and currently leads the firms Business services and Manufacturing verticals. He has been on the board of several companies such as KPIT Technologies, Liquid Hub, Shriram Transport Finance Company Ltd, Titagarh Wagons Limited etc. He has led several high profile investments of the firm such as HCL, Infosys and Cyient and has also worked extensively on managing exits for ChrysCapital, where ChrysCapital has been an industry leader. He holds an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi University and has also attended Executive Leadership Course for top management from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Sanjeev has around 22 years of experience in the areas of real estate fund management, corporate finance, strategy and financial control. Immediately prior to joining Ascendas, he was working as President of Real Estate at ICICI Venture Funds Mgmt. Co. Ltd., a leading private equity fund manager in India. In that role, he was responsible for investments and portfolio management of the Real Estate funds of around USD 600 million. His key achievements included creation of a real estate structured investment product and a managed account platform through which he led investments in Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore. He also played a key role in significant performance improvements of certain assets through changes in the development mix, cost reduction, refinancing and other initiatives. Prior to joining ICICI Venture, he managed real estate investments of around USD 430 million as Managing Director at Future Capital Real Estate, a leading real estate development oriented fund manager. He led several landmark investments in metros such as Mumbai and Bangalore and in high growth tier 2 cities.

Sanjeev's prior work experience included stints with organisations such as Tata Group and Merrill Lynch across India, Hong Kong and London. He is a qualified chartered accountant, graduate company secretary and holds a Master of Business Administration from London Business School.

Sasha Mirchandani is Managing Director and Founder of Kae Capital and Co-founder Mumbai Angels. Previously, he was at Blue Run Ventures as Managing Director for the India operations. Before joining Blue Run Ventures he was CEO and Founder of Imercius Technologies, a BPO focused on the healthcare space. Earlier he was at Mirc Electronics (Onida) where he was Head of Corporate Affairs and new business. His investments include Fractal Analytics, Inmobi, Healthkart, Myntra, Greendust, Cloudbyte, Canvera and Mettl. Sasha sits on the Boards of Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited, Ador Welding and Mumbai Angels Venture Mentors among others.

Sasha completed his Business Administration from Strayer University and MMDP program at IIM, Ahmedabad. He is a Charter Member at TiE Mumbai. He is also Past President of Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) Mumbai and is a member of the Mumbai Chapter of the Young Presidents Organisation (YPO). He is also on the Board of Governors of the Universal Business School.

@SashaMirchi

Satya is the Chief Executive Officer of the W&IM division of Barclays in India. He joined Barclays W&IM in 2007

Satya started his career in project and corporate finance in India and had worked in numerous functions including finance, sales, marketing, product development and technology and investment analysis in the past 24 years. Prior to joining Barclays, he was the Head of Private Banking in the South East Asia region for ICICI Bank in Singapore.

Satya holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Rajasthan in India and is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India. He is an alumnus of HBS and has attended AMP.

Satya is a charter member of TiE and various other angel networks and an active angel investor having helped more than 20 start-ups across industries both in India and overseas including social impact investing. He is involved with various community initiatives and NGOs including the Rotary Club of Mumbai.

Shashank Singh is a Partner and Head of the India office of Apax Partners, the global Private Equity fund. He joined Apax in London in 2004, before moving to India in 2007 to start Apax’s office there. His deals at Apax include Cholamandalam Investment and Finance, GlobalLogic, IGATE Corp, Apollo Hospitals, TDC, Bezeq and Synetrix.

Prior to joining Apax Partners, Shashank spent four years as a strategy consultant with Monitor Company in their London office, leading client engagements in the telecommunications and high technology sectors.

Shashank serves on the boards of iGATE Corporation Inc. (Nasdaq: IGTE) and GlobalLogic. In addition, he is an Independent Non-executive Director on the Board of Greatship India Limited, the offshore oilfield services company, Dasra, India's leading not-for-profit capacity builder, and is a Trustee of the Apax Foundation.

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

Shankar Narayanan is a Managing Director with the Asia Growth Capital team of global PE fund responsible for advising growth capital investments in India. He is based in Mumbai.
 
Mr. Narayanan has been in private equity since 1993 with the unique distinction of having run some of the investee companies as a CEO. He has on-the-ground work experience across the country which allows him to have a very practical perspective of growth prospects and challenges across industries.
 
Since joining the global PE fund in 2004, Mr. Narayanan has led and advised Carlyle on key investments such as Claris Lifesciences, Elitecore Technologies, Repco Home Finance, Tirumala Milk Products, Visen Industries, Value and Budget Housing Corporation, Edelweiss Financial Services, South Indian Bank, Infotech Enterprises; etc. He has also successfully delivered exits from Tirumala Milk Products, Cyberoam Technologies and Repco Home Finance (IPO). He was also actively involved in managing the fund’s investments and exits in Newgen Knowledge Works, Financial Software & Systems, Learning Mate Solutions, QuEST and Sharekhan.
 
Prior to joining the global PE fund, Mr. 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. He was involved in 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 and 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 standing first in the graduating class in the area of Finance & Accounting and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

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

Sohil brings to NVP India more than 13 years of financial, investment banking and private equity investment experience from leading global financial institutions. Based in the NVP India Mumbai office, Sohil serves as an advisor on growth equity investments in Indian companies across a wide range of sectors, including telecom, technology, financial services, infrastructure and manufacturing. Sohil advised NVP India’s investments in Asian Genco Pte Ltd. (AGPL), NSE (National Stock Exchange of India, Ltd.), Nueclear Healthcare Limited, Sadbhav, Snowman Logistics, and Thyrocare. Sohil is also a board observer for NationWide Primary Healthcare Services.

Prior to joining NVP India, Sohil was an Executive Director in Goldman Sachs’ Asian Special Situations Group, a balance sheet investing group with over $4 billion under management. Sohil was the first executive recruited for the group’s India business in 2006 and became part of a five-member team in Mumbai tasked with building and running the India business. In this role with Goldman Sachs, Sohil was involved in making over $300 million of private equity and PIPE investments in India.

Srini re - joined CDC in June 2013 and is currently Head of South Asia and based out of Bangalore. In his current role he is CDC's representative on the ground and responsible for its investments in the region.

Previously Srini was Director with a global PE fund Actis and focussed on Private Equity deals in the Financial Services sector in South Asia. Prior to this He was focusing on deal origination for Actis in India and also managed a portfolio of CDC investments in South Asia for value. He spent close to eight years in Sub Saharan Africa with both CDC and Standard Chartered Bank.

Srini has a Masters degree in Economics and a post Graduate in Business Administration from Warwick School of Business.

Srinath Srinivasan is the Chief Executive Officer of Oman India Joint Investment Fund (OIJIF). OIJIF is a Joint Venture Fund between State Bank of India and State General Reserve Fund (SGRF) of Oman. SGRF is the sovereign wealth fund of Oman. At OIJIF, he has evaluated over 300 potential investment opportunities and has invested in 5 companies across sectors. These include ING Vysya Bank, Solar Industries, NCDEX, Beaver Industries (HBL Batteries) and IndusTeqsite. He currently serves on the Board of NCDEX, Beaver Industries and IndusTeqsite.

Srinath has 23 years of experience including 14 years in Private Equity. As a private equity professional, he has invested in 28 Companies till date and has served on many Boards across Asia. During his career, he has lived and worked across Asia.

Private Equity industry in India entered a growth phase starting 2004. During this phase, Srinath was instrumental in setting up and heading the Private Equity business of Reliance Capital. In this role, he managed a USD 100 million Joint Venture fund with Temasek of Singapore (to invest in companies making products for the power sector). He also invested in non-power sector companies through a Proprietary Fund. Some of the well-known companies in which he invested include Sukam Power Systems, Ravin Cables, EMI Transmission, DTDC Courier and Cargo etc.

Prior to returning to India in 2004, Srinath worked with AIG Asian Infrastructure Fund in Singapore, where he managed investments of the Fund in infrastructure space across Asia.

Srinath has a rich operation experience in the telecom industry, where-in he has done sale of products, business development for wireless networks, implemented customer care and billing systems for Telco's and arranged project finance for Telco's.

He is an Electronics and Communication Engineer from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Suratkhal, Karnataka. He was a State Scholar at NIT Suratkal. Srinath has done his MBA from Asian Institute of Management, Philippines.

Srinath has worked across Asia in diverse cultures and lived in Singapore for 12 years. He is fluent in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil and English languages.

Sudhir is Founder & Chairman of IDG Ventures India Advisors. He specialises in identifying disruptive high growth technology firms with a strong leadership team, and helps them grow rapidly with an eye for outsized financial returns.

Since 1998 Sudhir and his team have advised on investments into 40 firms across Digital Consumer, Enterprise Software and Engineering / Medical Device Sectors. Key investments include FlipKart (India’s leading eCommerce player), Mindtree Consulting (a global IT services play), Myntra (Fashion & Sports e-Commerce), Manthan (a global Analytics product play), and Yatra (a leading Online Travel Company). Other marquee names in the IDG portfolio include Firstcry, Vserve, Lenskart and Zivame.
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’. He was also recently featured in Subroto Bagchi’s recent book ‘’Zen Garden - Conversations with Pathmakers’’, in 2014.

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.

@sudhirksethi

Mr. Sunil Mantri has built his empire on four indispensable pillars - Quality, Technology, Innovation and People. This astute realty developer has an ambitious vision, a keen business sense and a strong commitment to principles. These elements have helped him and his company transcend traditional boundaries in the real estate domain and make a difference to people’s lives through best-in-class business practices. His lateral thinking and decision making skills, coupled with decades of hands-on experience, have enabled him to steer Mantri Realty on its mission to building unique, modern and high quality living and working spaces. He also fulfils his corporate and social responsibility by being involved with several social and humanitarian initiatives.

Sunil Rohokale spearheads the ASK Group initiatives along with the subsidiary companies. He is regarded as someone with strong credentials in setting up new businesses and building strong professional teams that deliver results.

Belonging to a rare breed of professionals with experience in assets, liabilities and investments, he worked with ICICI Home Finance as the Managing Director and CEO prior to joining the ASK Group. At ICICI Bank, he was a member of the core team that started the mortgage business in 1999. Under his leadership, the bank achieved a leadership position in the business.

Udai is a Managing Director with Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) and joined to fund in 2008. Prior to that, he worked for over a decade in financial services focused on corporate investing, M&A and corporate finance, both in India and the United States. Udai’s roles have included Senior Vice President at Kotak Mahindra Capital where he led energy and transportation investment banking, Director of Corporate Development at Sabre Inc. where he led corporate investments of over USD 1 BN, and as a Consultant with Arthur Andersen in the corporate finance and tax practices. Udai has an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and is a chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Mr.Vikram Gupta is the Founder & Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures Advisors Private Limited. He has about 20 years of experience in Venture Capital, Business Consulting, M&A, Strategy and Technology in Healthcare and Life Sciences, Education, Consumer and other industries. He has also held leadership positions across various well-known companies in India and Abroad. Mr.Vikram Gupta set up India’s First Healthcare and Life Sciences Venture Capital Fund and invested across the sector. Mr.Gupta also managed Clinical Genomics practice for IBM’s Healthcare and Life Sciences vertical in the US.  He has also been an entrepreneur himself in the areas of technology and healthcare.

IvyCap Ventures is a Venture Capital Fund that manages over USD 150 mn across two funds and invests in startup’s in Technology, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Education and other areas. The Fund has already made substantial investments in the Indian Startup ecosystem including in Leixir, RML, Aujas, Vinculum, Sokrati, Taskbob, FT Cash, Fieldez, Clovia, Eshakti, Bluestone, Purplle & GrabonRent.

Mr.Vikram Gupta  has completed his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi and has an MBA degrees in Strategy and Finance from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

@vikramgupta70

Mr. Narain is Country-Head for TPG Growth, a global private equity firm and is based in Mumbai. Prior to joining TPG Growth in 2007, Narain was an investor with Bessemer Venture Partners in New York. Previous to that he was an Engagement Manager in McKinsey's Private Equity Practice in Palo Alto and London. He joined McKinsey from Deloitte Consulting, where he was a Senior Consultant. He has a Master of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an M.B.A., Stanford University School of Business. Narain’s non-profit activities include board roles at Spic Macay, an organization working to preserve and promote classical Indian music. He is deeply involved with his family’s foundation work in rural India. Selected as a Young Global Leader (2014), he is an active member of the World Economic Forum and is a part of the South Asia Bridge initiative to bring together business communities across borders under the WEF banner. He is also a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a 2014 Aspen Fellow. A semi-professional sitar player and adventure travel enthusiast. He has worked in 20 countries and traveled to over 75 nations. He is currently serves on the boards of AGS, Sutures India Limited, India Transact, Global Gene Corp and Landmark Auto. He is a columnist on economic opportunity and hopes to contribute to India's growth story.

Viswanathan Parameswar (Param) is the Head of the Adveq Asia program and is responsible for all investment activities in the region including primary fund investments, secondaries and direct co-investments. Adveq is a leading asset manager investing in private equity and real asset funds globally with more than USD 5 billion in assets under management. Prior to this, he was the Head of the Adveq Secondaries platform, investing in secondary transactions worldwide. Param leverages his international experience having been actively involved in Adveq’s investment activities across the US, Europe and Asia, particularly in emerging markets.

Param holds an MBA from the HEC School of Management in France and attended the Advanced Management and Leadership Programme at Oxford University, UK.