Our speakers

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.

Nishant Pradhan, Chief AI Officer, Mirae Asset Investment Managers

Nishant Pradhan, Chief AI Officer, Mirae Asset Global Investments

Nishant Sharma, Managing Director, Kedaara Capital Advisors

Nishant Sharma is a Co-Founder & Managing Director of Kedaara Capital Advisors LLP, an investment advisory firm focused on India. Kedaara enables solution-oriented capital combining deep strategic & operational expertise in focused sectors, consultative approach and global connectivity to deliver superior returns.

Prior to Kedaara, Nishant served as a Principal and one of the core members of the India investment team at General Atlantic (“GA”), one of the leading private equity firms in the world. He has over 10 years of investment advisory experience across financial services (including banking & finance), consumer, information technology and healthcare. He co-led GA’s investments in IndusInd Bank, Jubilant Lifesciences, IBS Software and Cyient.

Nishant sits on the Board of Au Financiers and Au Housing as a Nominee Director. Nishant also serves on the Board of the Harvard Business School (HBS) Club of India and is the Treasurer of the Club.Nishant received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and an M.Tech. and a B.Tech. in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2001.