World Renowned Faculties
Santosh Kathira, Associate Vice President, Merisis Advisors
Santosh Kathira is Associate Vice President for technology vertical at Merisis Advisors, He has been working with Merisis since 2012. He deals with technology companies with focus on mobile, e-commerce, payments & financial services, internet & online services, education, electronics, software products, hi-tech apart from IT/ITES & other services and media companies.
Earlier, he was with the corporate finance team at Yes Bank where he had the responsibility of managing the debt requirement of large
infrastructure clients ranging from power to EPC
Santosh N, Director - National Management, Duff & Phelps (Formerly American Appraisal)
Santosh is a part of national management of India office. He is responsible for overseeing key engagements, relationships and strategic initiatives for the Indian operations.
Santosh has more than 15 years of experience in valuation and financial advisory services. In the last 15 years, Santosh has managed and has provided a range of financial advisory services including Due Diligence, Valuation, IFRS & USGAAP assignments, Business Plan Review, M&A, Internal Audit, Accounting Assistance and Risk Advisory services.
Santosh has managed and executed a range of financial advisory engagements for Agri industry, Automobile, Consumer Durables, e-Commerce, Hospitality & leisure, Infrastructure, IT & ITeS, Logistics, Manufacturing, Media, Natural Resources, Petro-chemicals, Pharma & Healthcare, Power, Refineries, Real estate, Telecom & Textiles. He has provided financial advisory to clients for purposes such as financing, project finance, mergers & acquisitions, negotiations, settlement of disputes, strategic assessment, accounting and tax reporting etc.
He was heading the Financial Instrument Valuation practice in American Appraisal India earlier and used to chair the Complex Financial Instruments Valuation committee in AA, a global initiative taken by the firm to grow this particular service line. He was South India Valuation leader in Deloitte and was part of the founding team in Grant Thornton Bangalore.
He has been a speaker at several seminars/ workshops, including those organized by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). Was an International Key Note speaker in a conference on Business Valuation organized by RICS in London. Santosh’s prior work experience includes stints with Grant Thornton and Deloitte.
Saroj Patro, Ex CFO , Pt.Arutmin Indonesia
Saroj Patro is Chartered Accountant with post qualification experience of almost 25 years. His qualification includes major in Physics and 3 tier programme from IIM.Apart from industry experience, he has been teaching various management institutes/ speakers in various forums across countries/faculty in multiple professional bodies.His post qualification experience (predominantly in metal and mining) includes various challenging roles in organizations like Nalco, ICI, Orica, Tata Power and Bumi Resources among others.
He has been experienced last 10 years in senior leadership roles across organisations and countries. He has been instrumental in simplifying the structures in a complex environment. In one of the leadership position with Bumi Resources coalmine as Tata Power’s nominee, the profitability had grown by 10 times to USD 800m in a span of four years from 2008 to 2012. His expertise remains in organization building, value maximization and realizing the value of stakeholders.
Last two years, he has been advising/providing consultation to various large mining groups, management consultants and private equities.He has been panelist speaker and advised to McKinsey, Janus, CITI Group/A T Kearney, Bumi Resources Mineral, Thriveni/Samara Capital, KKR and various other large firms on variety of subjects. Had been consultant and panelist speaker with GLG.
Saumil Shah, Partner and Head of Private Equity Tax Practice, BSR & Co.
Saumil Shah is a partner and head of private equity tax practice with BSR & Co. He has over 18 years of professional consulting experience with over 10 years of M & A Tax specialization. His experience includes M & A, PE, JVs and Corporate Restructuring. He has advised and executed assignments on corporate mergers/demergers, internal capital re-organizations, balance sheet right-sizing, family arrangements, buy-back of securities and transactions such as acquisition structuring, due diligence reviews, investments/divestments routes, minority buy-out, etc.
Saumil works with clients from a cross section of industry segments; however in the recent past, he has done significant amount of work for large private equity funds and corporates in financial services, consumer markets and pharma sectors.
Sebastian Edassery, Director - Forensic services, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited
Sebastian is a Director in the Forensic Services practice within Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd. and leads Computer Forensics. He has over 15 years of professional experience in the fields of Fraud investigations & Fraud control, Digital Forensics, Technology Investigations, Ethics Helpline, Vigilance and Training. This includes nearly 10 years of his service with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) where led over a number of investigations involving bribery and corruption, employee frauds, ethical violations etc.
Sebastian has also been associated with Interpol and International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC – USA) since 2006 for Law Enforcement Training on investigation of “Computer Facilitated Crimes against Children”.
He is an MS in Cyber Law and Cyber Security, Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI) and a Master Trainer from Interpol on Technology Crime investigations. He is also a qualified Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and served the Indian Air Force for 20 years prior to joining the CBI.
Senthil Kumar, Managing Director, Protiviti
With over two decades of experience in the field of IT Strategy and Architecture, Information Security, Enterprise Systems and IT auditing domains, Senthil has lead several IT crucial engagements for clients across India, Middle East, UK and Asia Pacific. He has personally developed IT System Architecture based on TOGAF guidelines for a number of prominent organizations. His area of expertise also includes Business Continuity Management and Information Governance, with extensive experience in banking, telecom and oil & gas. A regular speaker on International Standards for Information Security Management and Business Continuity Management at various regional and international conferences, Senthil uses his wealth of knowledge to conduct training programs on IT Governance using CoBIT and IT audit training using various IT Standards, Best Practices and ISACA IT Auditing Guidelines.
Senthil will be a key speaker at the annual submit of Data Security Council of India and Venture Capital Circle. These events will be attended by 500+ IT, private equity, telecom, banking audit professionals and government agencies in Delhi and Bangalore respectively.
Also, the President of ISACA Kuwait Chapter in formation, Senthil holds a Master Degree in Financial Management as well as CISA and CISM certificates from ISACA, USA.
Shailesh Vikram Singh, Executive Director, Seedfund
Shailesh Vikram Singh is an Investor / Entrepreneur presently working as an Executive Director with Seedfund (leading Venture Capital fund in India) and heads its New Delhi operations. Shailesh has over 18 years of experience in Investing / Business Operations and strategy.
Prior to Seedfund, Shailesh was MD of a mid-sized private equity fund in Bangalore and managed a USD 170 mn fund. In the year 2000, Shailesh co-founded an internet technology startup in digital media space and was instrumental in setting another in commodities trading space.
Shailesh is a regular speaker at various Industry forums & B-schools. He takes active interest in grooming future entrepreneurs and business students.
Shailesh is very passionate about environment, technology, governance & rural development. Shailesh did his B.Tech (Production engineering) followed by an MBA from IIM, Lucknow and is a charter member of TiE.
Shankar Bhargava, Director - Financial Advisory Services - Deals - Valuation , PwC
Shankar has more than 10 years of valuation experience including working with a Big Four in New York. He is currently based out of New Delhi and forms part of the Valuation & Strategy practice at PwC. He has worked expansively in performing valuations of equity interest, investment portfolio companies, intangible assets and purchase price allocations for strategic planning, M&A, tax reporting, restructuring/reorganization and reporting purposes under various accounting frameworks including Indian GAAP, Ind AS, US GAAP and IFRS.
Shanthi Vijetha, Partner, Grant Thornton India LLP
Shanthi is a MBA Finance with 16 years experience in deal advisory and consulting. He started his career in management consulting with AF Ferguson/ Deloitte and moved to Grant Thornton to focus on deal advisory. His experience includes fund raising, M&A and AIM listing. He spent two years in the UK and gained deal experience in European context. His experience has been in the Technology, Retail and Media sectors with primary focus on PE/VC fund raising and cross border deals.
Sharad Abhyankar, Partner, Khaitan & Co
Sharad Abhyankar, Solicitor & Advocate joined M&A and Corporate Advisory Practice of Khaitan & Co, Mumbai Office in December 2011. Practising for more than 28 years, Sharad specialises in corporate laws, securities laws, anti-trust laws, telecom regulations, constitutional litigation and international commercial arbitrations. He advises Indian and international clients on strategic M&As, private equity investments, capital market transactions, financing transactions, domestic and cross-border foreign collaborations and joint ventures, foreign exchange and securities law related matters.
Sharad has led the merger of housing finance companies with public sector banks and has advised on issues on complex regulatory issues relating to mergers and acquisitions in financial services sector.
Sharad has led many complex legal due diligence assignments of Indian Corporate Groups for compliance check, health check, particularly focussed on Promoter Groups, Related Party Transactions; tunnelling schemes by promoters and Key Managerial Personnel and insider trading.
Sharad has also led preparation of compliance manuals on Indian federal and state laws for Indian Corporate Groups with international operations.
Sharad is also involved in facilitating different government agencies in framing policies and regulations such as the State Education Board in Maharashtra, Department of Telecommunications, ICASA - the Telecom Regulator in Republic of South Africa. Sharad also led the project of developing the Model Shops & Establishments Law in association with FICCI, which was recently adopted by the Union Cabinet.
Sharad Abhyankar is an Independent Director on a few listed and unlisted Indian companies and has been a part-time faculty on various legal subjects at the Government Law College, Mumbai, for more than 25 years.
Sharad is a member of the Advisory Committee and Drafting Committee of the NSE Center for Excellence in Corporate Governance. He has authored several articles on a variety of legal topics in both, Indian and International journals and is often invited as a speaker/ panellist at a number of professional seminars.