Our speakers

Nirav Kachalia, Managing Director, Morgan Creek Capital

Nirav Kachalia is a Managing Director of Investments at Morgan Creek and one of the founding members of the investment team with a principal focus on private investments. Mr. Kachalia joined Morgan Creek in December 2004 and during his tenure the firm has completed approximately $2.8 billion in commitments to private assets. In January of 2007, after several years of covering the Asia Pacific region, Nirav moved with his family to Hong Kong to open and head Morgan Creek's Hong Kong office. Prior to joining Morgan Creek, Mr. Kachalia was co-founder and Vice President for Strategy for HiFusion, an education technology company.

Mr. Kachalia assisted in all start-up activities including raising over $16 million and growing the company to over 150 employees before negotiating a successful sale to a joint venture corporation established by Sylvan Learning Systems and Aether Systems. Prior to starting HiFusion, Mr. Kachalia was an Associate at Winslow Partners, the personal investment vehicle for Kenneth Brody, a former Management Committee member of Goldman, Sachs. At Winslow he was responsible for sourcing, evaluating and negotiating investment opportunities within early stage and late stage private equity. Prior to joining Winslow Partners, Mr. Kachalia was in the Investment Banking Program at Morgan Stanley in the health care group, where he analyzed and executed strategic corporate finance alternatives for both small and large capitalization companies.

Mr. Kachalia received his Bachelor of Science in Biology and his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.

Nirav Khambhati, Partner, Kaizen Private Equity

Nirav is a Partner at Kaizen Private Equity, Asia’s first and only fund exclusively focused on education.

Prior to joining Kaizen, Nirav was with the Tata Group for over 20 years in various capacities including as the Chief Executive Officer of Tata ClassEdge and Tata Interactive Systems, Vice President – Chairman’s Office, and Head Telecom Practice – TCS, Asia Pacific. Nirav has led several international projects and collaborations in the fields of telecommunications and aerospace, and served as Director on the Boards of companies within and outside India.

Nirav is an Engineer and MBA (Gold Medalist). He was one of the twelve mid-career professionals selected by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK for the first batch of the Chevening Rolls-Royce Science and Innovation Leadership Programme at the University of Oxford.

Nirav was recognized as a Young India Leader by the British High Commission in 2013. In 2016, Jagran Lakecity University conferred upon him an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Arts (Management) for his contributions in the space of management, education and technology. Nirav is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Council for Primary Education.

Nirav Pujara, Partner - Corporate Finance & Restructuring, Deloitte India

Nirav Pujara is a Partner with Deloitte India and part of the Corporate Finance & Restructuring practice. He has over 17+ years of experience in delivering Business Consulting, Risk Advisory, Restructuring services and Operational turnaround advisory services to corporates across industries.

Nirav’s areas of expertise include Insolvency Professional services, working capital management, pre-insolvency monitoring services, operational turnaround services and debt raising.

He is a Chartered Accountant and a member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and qualified Resolution Professional. He also has a substantial overseas work experience including a stint with Deloitte UK member firm for two years.

Niren Shah, Managing Director & India head, Norwest Venture Partners

Niren is a Managing Director at Norwest (NVP) India and has been leading NVP India for over 10 years. Niren brings more than 20 years of Investing, entrepreneurial, financial and operating experience from leading global financial institutions to consumer and technology companies.

Niren focuses on both Private equity and late stage Venture investments with special interest in sectors such as Financial Services, Internet, Consumer and Technology. Niren has overseen more than 30 investments at NVP India and has directly facilitated 14 such investments. Investments include Cholamandalam Finance, Pepperfry, IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya, Jain Irrigation, RBL Bank, Quikr.com, Swiggy.com, RevX Technologies, Shriram City Union, Yes Bank, Five Star Finace, Esskay Fincorp and Kotak Bank. Niren also has a strong exit record having overseen more than 15 exits, of which he has directly facilitated significant exits for 9 of his companies

Prior to joining NVP India, Niren was the Senior Director of Strategy and Ventures at eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) in California, where he helped drive the worldwide strategy across eBay’s Global Marketplaces. Prior to eBay, Niren was part of the original team at Baazee.com, Inc., the leading Indian eCommerce player in the mid-2000s (which was eventually acquired by eBay). Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, Niren was an investment banker with KPMG focusing on the Financial
Services and Technology spaces and before that, a Registered Equity Dealer on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Niren is a rank holder Chartered Accountant and a Gold medallist Masters in Commerce from University of Mumbai.

Nirmal Gangwal, Founder, Brescon & Allied Partners LLP

Mr. Nirmal Gangwal, is an investment banker specialising in crafting financial solutions, liabilities management, recapitalization, debt resolution, financial restructuring and divestments with over 39 years of experience. He is the founder and chairman of Brescon Group, India’s first and one of the largest independent investment bank specialized in special situations and stressed assets advisory for last two decades. Brescon & Gangwal have become synonymous with “Regenerating Value” and “Creating Opportunity in Adversity” out of special situations and stressed assets. If increase in market capitalisation of the top 25 cases is considered as benchmark for value creation, Gangwal has created 16x value for its clients leading to market capitalisation of over $13 bn. He has guided more than 300 corporates in their growth phase as well as in stress by way of liabilities management in excess of USD$ 20 bn (INR 1,40,000 crores). He has also advised public sector banks to find possible ways and means to improve upon Capital Adequacy Ratio post Basel III requirements. Well regarded by the industry for his out-of-the box thinking capabilities, he advised one of the premier public sector bank in improving capital adequacy ratio by recapitalisation of the real estate value. He has deep insights in the special situations and stressed assets market and is often regarded to have one of the sharpest financial minds across India.

He has been a thought leader in Special Situation Advisory, bringing several innovative ideas to the attention of regulators and policy makers from time to time and was part of the Working Group formulated for implementation of the latest Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 by Government of India. Recently, Mr. Gangwal is working on setting up a not-for-profit online advisory platform for helping stressed companies in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector wherein he plans to advise these companies in their debt resolution. The team is working on the initial beta version of the digital platform.

Nirmal Jain, Founder & Chairman, IIFL Group

Nirmal Poddar, President - Manufacturing, Transasia Bio-medicals Ltd

Nirmal Poddar is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Mumbai, having graduated in 1983. He has worked at Godrej & Boyce in various capacities for 20 years. Major experience there has been in R&D / Operations and as VP & Business Head in the field of Machine Tools & Precision Equipment for Defense / Nuclear / Space Programs. In year 2004, he joined Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd as President Instruments responsible for Domestic Sales & Marketing, R&D and Manufacturing of the Instrument business for Transasia. Lately, he is responsible for all Instrument related R&D and Manufacturing for the entire Transasia Group.

Nirmal Singh, Founder & CEO, Wheebox

Nirmal is Founder and CEO of Wheebox, He is responsible for Wheebox reach across geographies, Product Management and Investor relationship.

Prior to Wheebox, he was a Country Head for Higher Education Business at NIIT Limited. Primarily focused on setting up Talent Centres across India and advising Universities and Colleges to set up COEs.

Previously served in key leadership roles at New Horizons for over five years, as SAARC Head for New Horizons consumer division.

Nirmal has over 16 year of working experience and he is Masters in Business Management and Masters in Education Management.

Nischal Puri, MD, Brandis Manufacturing and Marketing Pvt Ltd

Nischal Puri is the Founder and MD of Brandis Manufacturing and Marketing Pvt Ltd – a brand conglomerate with 2 apparel, innerwear brands in its portfolio and plans to launch 2 more brands in the near future.
 
Brandis is credited to be first company in the chosen space to be PE backed and is emerging as one of the most aggressively growing company in the category and is building world class manufacturing capabilities.
 
Mr. Nischal Puri has been brand and marketing consultant for some of the leading innerwear brands in India. Mr Puri’s professional stint in Jockey India as Head Marketing witnessed the company launching its primary issue.
 
He has been associated with many retail and apparel brands during the career spanning 14 years. An industry thought leader he has avid interest is contributing to the growth of the apparel, retail and innerwear industry
 
Mr. Puri has post graduation degree form JNU and MBA degree from ULH London and mentors MBA students in some of the leading MBA institutes in India.

Nishant Parikh, Partner, Trilegal | @TrilegalLaw

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.