Speakers | Events and Training

Balaji Narayanamurthy, President & Head BIU, Axis Bank

Balaji Narayanamurthy is President and Head of Business Intelligence Unit at Axis Bank. He has two decades of experience in banking, analytics and using data to drive business decisions. He joined Axis Bank in 2010 and over the last 12 plus years has played a key role in establishing a strong analytics practice across the bank.

Prior to Axis Bank, Mr. Balaji spent close 1o years in the U.S. credit card business. He worked with Barclaycard, in US as a Group Director of Analytics before Barclarycard, Mr. Balaji worked at various roles in the U.S. credit card business of Capital One.

He started his career as a management associate at Citibank India in their transaction banking group Mr. Balaji holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IIT Chennai and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Lucknow.

Balaji Rao, Real Estate Fund Manager, Axis Asset Management Company

Balaji Rao is a veteran of the Indian real estate industry, having over 3 decades of experience in the property markets of the country. Balaji is one of the few industry experts who has assumed leadership roles across the various aspects of the real estate sector, and has been associated with the marquee institutions of the industry as both a developer and a fund manager.

Prior to joining Axis AMC, Balaji was the managing director of Indic Capital Advisors, where he supervised the operations of the 630-million-dollar Sun Apollo Fund, along with the other development projects of the Sun Group in India. He served as managing director of Starwood Capital India, where he channelled investments of over a billion dollars in the Indian real estate sector. He played a fundamental role in setting up Mumbai’s premier office building, First India Financial Centre (FIFC) in the Bandra-Kurla Complex. During his tenure as managing director of TCG Real Estate, he entrepreneurially grew their real estate & infrastructure businesses in India and built an IT Park footprint of over 10 million sq.ft. across the country.

He previously served as Head of Property for ANZ Bank, India, where he managed a property portfolio of INR 12 billion. Before ANZ, he was the primary initiator and driving force of the Mortgages and Developer Lending businesses at Standard Chartered Bank India and ITC Classic.

As the Sales and Marketing Head for the K. Raheja Group, Balaji played an influential role in leading the Group’s foray into large retail formats with ‘Shoppers Stop’ and was responsible for conceptualizing and marketing the concept of integrated townships across major Indian cities.

He has also served as an independent director on the boards of L&T Realty and L&T Seawoods Ltd.

Balaji is a rank-holding Chartered Accountant and holds an MBA from IIM-Kolkata. He is also a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Balamurugan IAS, Managing Partner, Anicut Capital

Balram Yadav, CEO, Godrej Agrovet

Balram Yadav is Managing Director of Godrej Agrovet, one of India?s foremost diversified agribusiness companies. He also serves as Managing Director of Godrej Tyson Foods and Vice Chairman of the Compound Livestock Feed Manufacturers Association of India. In addition, he is a Director of numerous firms including ACI Godrej (Bangladesh), Creamline Dairy Products, Polchem Hygiene Laboratories, and Aadhaar Retailing.

Balram began his career with Godrej as Branch Executive at Khanna in 1991. During the last nineteen years, he has handled roles of increasing responsibility such as Deputy Sales Manager (Khanna), Factory Manager, Operations Manager and Deputy General Manager (Sachin). Balram was asked to lead the Integrated Poultry Business in 1999, and over the next nine years, established Real Good Chicken as the leading processed poultry brand in India.

Balram completed his B.Sc. in Agronomy at Haryana Agricultural University, where he ranked 2nd in his class. He earned his Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM-Ahmedabad. An avid footballer, he lives in Mumbai with his wife and two children.

Balu Nayar, MD, Morpheus Capital Advisors

Balu Nayar is one of the co-founders of Morpheus Capital, focussed on investments in Indian consumer businesses. Earlier, he was Managing Director of IMG India and played a key role in the conceptualization, business modeling and monetization of the IPL. Prior to that, Balu was with Yahoo as Regional Director for Yahoo’s Connected Life businesses across India, South-East Asia & Australia, after heading Hutchison Telecom’s VAS division, where he was involved with building the MVAS sector in India. Earlier, Balu set up the marketing division at STAR TV, in addition to business development operations related to the launch of Sky DTH television services in India. A graduate of the IIT Kharagpur and IIM Bangalore, Balu is also involved in mentoring start-ups in the area of media and technology.

Bama Balakrishnan, Chief Finance Officer, Northern Arc Capital

Bama Balakrishnan is the CFO of Northern Arc Capital, a leading Non-Banking Finance Company. Northern Arc is a pioneer in the field of financial inclusion by serving as a crucial link between mainstream capital market investors and small & mid-sized high-quality last-mile lending institutions and businesses.

Bama has previously served as the Chief Risk Officer leading the risk function since 2012. She has been instrumental in strengthening the risk management approach to sharpen risk assessment of clients, and their portfolios as well as building the ability to assess dynamically, the impact of risk events. Prior to Northern Arc Capital, Bama worked with ICICI Bank for 10 years starting off in the structured finance team and moving on to lead teams in corporate and investment banking in India, USA and Singapore. She has experience originating, structuring and executing complex bilateral and syndicated financing transactions for medium and large corporates across products such as cross border acquisition financing, asset financing and resource financing. She graduated with an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Madras. She is also a CFA charter holder.

Bama Balakrishnan is the CFO of Northern Arc Capital, a leading Non-Banking Finance Company. Northern Arc is a pioneer in the field of financial inclusion by serving as a crucial link between mainstream capital market investors and small & mid-sized high-quality last-mile lending institutions and businesses.

Bama has previously served as the Chief Risk Officer leading the risk function since 2012. She has been instrumental in strengthening the risk management approach to sharpen risk assessment of clients, and their portfolios as well as building the ability to assess dynamically, the impact of risk events. Prior to Northern Arc Capital, Bama worked with ICICI Bank for 10 years starting off in the structured finance team and moving on to lead teams in corporate and investment banking in India, USA and Singapore. She has experience originating, structuring and executing complex bilateral and syndicated financing transactions for medium and large corporates across products such as cross border acquisition financing, asset financing and resource financing. She graduated with an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Madras. She is also a CFA charter holder.

Bama Balakrishnan, COO, Northern Arc Capital