Guthrie Stewart
Senior Vice President and Global Head of Private Investments
PSP INVESTMENTS
As Head of Private Investments at the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), Guthrie Stewart oversees a growing portfolio of more than CA$27 billion invested in Private Equity and Infrastructure. The Private Investments group seeks to build long-term relationships and co-invests with operating platforms and other funds worldwide.
Prior to joining PSP Investments in September 2015, Mr. Stewart was a partner at one of Canada’s largest private equity buy-out and venture capital firms. He also held several executive roles in the telecommunications industry (international and mobile networks), including CEO, Teleglobe Canada and EVP, Global Development of Teleglobe Inc., and was a founding officer of what is now Bell Mobility. In addition, Mr. Stewart acted as a corporate director and advisor for various public and private enterprises, and was an Adjunct Professor and member of the Faculty Advisory Board of the McGill Desautels Faculty of Management.
Mr. Stewart has an MBA from INSEAD (Europe) and a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School (Toronto), and he studied Honours Science at Queen’s University (Kingston). He also completed the ICD certification program for corporate directors through Rotman-McGill.
Rajaram (Raj) Rao
Partner
GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE PARTNERS
Raj Rao is a founding member and Partner at GIP. He leads GIP’s energy, power, water and waste related efforts in Europe and is based in London.
Mr. Rao led GIP’s investment in Borkum Riffgrund 2, CLH SA, East India Petroleum Limited, Vena Energy, Hornsey 1, Naturgy, Gode Wind 1, Saeta Yield / Bow Power and Transitgas.
He is also serves as the Chairman of the Investment Committee for GIP India’s infrastructure funds.
Prior to joining GIP in 2006, Mr. Rao was a Director with Credit Suisse, in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group specialising in energy and utilities transactions. Before joining Credit Suisse, Mr. Rao was a member of the project finance team within Barclays Capital in London, where he worked on several project and acquisition financing transactions in Europe. Previously, Mr. Rao worked within the Asian equity sales team of Kotak Securities (then an affiliate of Goldman Sachs) in Mumbai, India.
In his 24-year career, he has completed multiple transactions, including a number of complex mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, and financing transactions across the energy, waste and transport spectrum, in both OECD and emerging market countries.
Mr. Rao holds a Masters in Finance degree from the London Business School and an M.B.A. from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University. He is also a qualified electronics and telecommunications engineer.
Sanjay Nayar
Member and CEO
KKR INDIA
Sanjay Nayar (Mumbai) joined KKR in 2009 and is a Member and CEO of KKR India. He is also a member of the Asia Portfolio Management Committee and Asian Investment Committee. He is on the board of KKR's portfolio companies Radiant Healthcare, Bharti Infratel, Magma Financial Services, and Coffee Day Holdings, and has had significant involvement with KKR's investment in Apollo Hospitals. He also supports expanding the range of KKR's credit and capital markets offerings across the region.
Prior to joining KKR, he served as CEO of Citigroup's Indian and South Asian operations and as a member of Citigroup’s Management Committee and Asia Executive Operating Committee. Currently, he is a member of the board of USISPF, and SEBI’s NISM Board of Governors. He serves on the boards of Washington D.C.-based EMPEA and the Indian School of Business (ISB), and is a founding member of the Brookings Foundation, India.
Mr. Nayar was additionally the deputy chairman of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and served on the Committee of the Reserve Bank of India tasked with building the bank’s Centre for Advanced Financial Learning (CAFRAL). He was the co-chairman of the Banking Committee for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and served as the chairman of the Indian Private Venture Capital Association.
Juan Delgado-Moreira
Vice Chairman
HAMILTON LANE
Juan is a Vice Chairman and Head of International at Hamilton Lane, based in the firm’s Hong Kong office, where he oversees the firm’s Asian and European investment activities and client relationships.
Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2005, Juan was an Investment Manager at Baring Private Equity Partners Ltd. in London, where he focused on mid-market private equity in Europe. Previously, Juan held senior research positions at UK institutions such as the University of Essex and was a lecturer and Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University. Juan began his career as an analyst in Madrid at the SEPI (formerly known as lnstituto Nacional de Industria).
Juan received a Ph.D. in Research Methods/statistics and a B.A. in Political Science and Sociology from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a member of the CFA Institute and the Securities Institute.
Khailee Ng
Managing Partner
500 STARTUPS
Khailee Ng is a Managing Partner of 500 Startups, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Beyond investing in Silicon Valley, 500 has set up more than a dozen funds in emerging markets, providing seed capital and growth programs to countries in the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Since 2010, the firm has invested in over 2,000 startups in 70 countries, in line with its goal of developing an inclusive and globally connected innovation economy.
With the firm, Mr. Ng has led over +100 investments in Southeast Asian tech startups, including Grab, Bukalapak, Carousell, and other regional champions. Prior to this, he was the founder of Groupsmore (acquired by Groupon) and Malaysia's largest online media company, Says.com (acquired by Media Prima).
As every industry continues to be disrupted by new technology and evolving consumer landscapes, Mr. Ng and 500 Startups specialize in discovering patterns of economic opportunity and investing in the entrepreneurs who will realize them. His investment activity and industry opinions are featured by Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, and Fortune, and the 500 Startups portfolio of companies have collectively raised over $10Billion USD.
Madhur Deep
Head of Strategy & Corporate Development
ALIBABA GROUP
Madhur Deep heads Strategy & Corporate Development for Alibaba Group in India where he builds and oversees the group ecosystem in India. Alibaba ecosystem in India today comprises payments (Paytm), B2C e-commerce (Paytm Mall, Big Basket), cross-border B2C (AliExpress), logistics (XpressBees), B2B e-commerce (alibaba.com), content (UC Web) and Alibaba Cloud. He led the expansion to markets of Turkey/Middle East and South Asia by investments in Trendyol and Daraz respectively.
Prior to joining Alibaba, Mr. Deep worked with McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, Mr. Deep advised CXOs in leading organizations in India, US & SE Asia in achieving their strategic and operational aspirations. Before McKinsey, Mr. Deep worked with Goldman Sachs where hefa led buyouts in Europe and Asia.
Mr. Deep holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, with a major in strategy and finance. Mr. Deep earned his bachelor’s in technology from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy.
TV Mohandas Pai
Co-Founder and Chairman
AARIN CAPITAL
In a career spanning over 30 years, Mohandas Pai has served in the areas of finance, accounting, information technology, human resources, education, social impact innovation, environmental conservation, policy formulation, heritage preservation, philanthropy, and the venture and startup ecosystem.
Mr. Pai is currently the Chairman of Aarin Capital, Chairman of Manipal Global Education, an Advisor to the Board of Manipal Education and Medical Group, a Member of the Board of Havells India, a Member of the Board of Ascendas Property Fund Trustee, the Trustee-Manager of Ascendas India Trust, Member of the Boards of Manipal University and the Institute of Public Enterprises, Chairman of FICCI Skills Committee, President of the All India Management Association, Chairman of the Regulatory and Financial Technology Committee of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”), Founder-Trustee of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, an Investment Committee Member of the SIDBI India Aspiration Fund and the India Fund of Funds, and a Member of the Board of the National Stock Exchange of India.
He was awarded the Padma Shri award by the President of India in 2015 and the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award in 2004.
He is the co-founder and Chairman of Aarin Capital, a private equity fund, that invests in companies and funds that focus on innovation in technology, education, health care, and life sciences. He has helped launch over 14 different investment vehicles across private equity and venture capital which have cumulatively invested in over 250 companies with a capital base of $400+ Million. He has worked with the Government of India to bring in a Startup Policy for the country, and the Governments of Karnataka, West Bengal, and Rajasthan on their respective Startup Policies for innovation and entrepreneurship. Mr. Pai is also an Investment Committee Member of the SIDBI India Aspiration Fund and the India Fund of Funds which has a corpus of $1.8 Billion. His family office has invested in over 30 different investment vehicles to grow the startup ecosystem in the country. He is consistently named as one of India’s top angel investors.
Mr. Pai currently serves on the Board of Manipal University, one of India’s leading educational institutions. He also serves on the Board of Institute of Public Enterprises in Hyderabad. He is the Chairman of Manipal Global Education Services Private Limited, which owns and manages technology, engineering, business, and medical universities in Malaysia, Nepal, Dubai, and Antigua. He headed the FICCI Higher Education Committee for over three years that created the Higher Education India 2030 report, now acknowledged as the leading thought paper in this domain.
Until 2011, Mr. Pai was a Member of the Board at Infosys, one of India’s largest software services companies. Mr. Pai joined Infosys in 1994 and was CFO from 1994 to 2006. He was voted ’CFO of the Year’ multiple times - ‘CFO of the Year’ in 2001 by IMA India, the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia in 2002, and ‘Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by Asia Money in 2004.
Mr. Pai has a keen interest in education, health, policy, heritage conservation, philanthropy, and civic engagement. In 2000, he co-founded the Akshaya Patra Foundation, Bangalore - a mid-day meal program for school children. Today, this program feeds over 1.6 million children each day in 13,500+ government schools across twelve Indian states. The mid-day meal program stands out as an exemplary private-public partnership program and has served over 2.5 Billion meals so far. It aims to feed 5 Million children daily by 2020, and is currently the largest mid-day meal program in the world.
Kaushik Anand
Head of India
CAPITALG
Kaushik Anand heads India for CapitalG. Prior to CapitalG, Mr. Anand worked at Sequoia Capital and McKinsey & Company. He has also started four companies in US and India in energy and internet including the travel search site, Cleverlayover.
Mr. Anand graduated with an engineering degree from IIT Madras where he won the CA Sastry Endowment Award and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.
Sateesh Andra
Managing Director
ENDIYA PARTNERS
Sateesh Andra has worked in or with venture-backed technology start-ups in U.S/India for the past twenty years. Having seen the complete cycle of fundraising, investments, and exits via association with Endiya Partners, Ventureast and DFJ, Mr. Andra approaches Venture Capital by working patiently with entrepreneurs through their highs and lows, till success is achieved.
Currently, he is Managing Director at Endiya Partners, a Venture Capital fund that invests in Product Startups across Technology, Healthcare and Consumer Sectors. He serves on boards of Cygni Energy, Slang Labs, AlphaICs, Kissht, and Darwinbox. Prior to Endiya, he was Managing Partner of Ventureast Tenet Fund. Notable successes include Little Eye Labs (Facebook, U.S), IncNut (istyle Inc, Japan) and Seclore. Prior to Ventureast, Mr. Andra was a Venture Partner and one of the founding members of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) India.
Prior to DFJ, Mr. Andra co-founded Euclid, a leader in the IT Management Software space and was instrumental in raising VC funding (USD 35 M+), acquiring, and managing marquee customers and partners. Euclid was acquired by e4e which is now a part of Synnex. He has also served in product marketing and engineering leadership roles at Tsqware (Conexant), LSI Logic (Broadcom), and VLSI Technology (NXP).
Mr. Andra has a B.Tech degree from JNTU, Hyderabad, and a Master’s in Electrical Engineering from SIUE. He is a member of SEBI "Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee" (AIPAC). He is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE). He is actively involved with the Pullela Gopichand Badminton Academy with the objective of popularizing sports and promoting fitness consciousness in the corporate world.
Mudit Bali
Senior Vice President
SAMENA CAPITAL INVESTMENTS
Mudit Bali is a Senior Vice President of Samena Capital Investments Limited in Dubai, focusing on investments within the Special Situations Funds.
Prior to joining Samena Capital, he was part of the IIFL (a leading Indian brokerage firm) equity research team covering telecommunication and education companies listed on the Indian bourses. Previously while working at a leading Indian Investment Bank, he advised various small & medium enterprises on M&A and fund raising. He has also worked with the strategic intelligence team at P&G in Singapore, working on P&G’s Asian hair-care portfolio.
Mr Bali has a MBA from IIM Bangalore and a degree in electronics engineering. He is also a CFA Level 3 candidate.
Deepak Bhawnani
CEO and Managing Director
ALEA CONSULTING
Deepak Bhawnani is the founder of Alea International Consulting Pvt Ltd in 2003. Owing to the superior service standards provided to its clientele, Alea has built a far-reaching corporate intelligence gathering network that spans across Asia and other parts of the world.
Mr. Bhawnani began his career in 1987 in London, UK and garnered unique expertise in due diligence, fraud investigations, international asset searches, hostile takeovers and security consulting. From 1994 to 2003, he was based in Asia with Kroll Inc., for whom he strategized and personally launched the first ever multi-national corporate intelligence set up in India.
A member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), Mr. Bhawnani has been a speaker at venture capital groups, banks, senior managements, Chambers of Commerce and other groups in Hong Kong, India and Japan. Currently, he is actively involved in major assignments at Alea International Consulting.
Since its inception, Alea International Consulting has delivered due diligence and fraud investigation services in a discreet and effectual manner. Alea has successfully extended its network and built partnerships with companies in major cities of India, along with Hong Kong for South East Asia.
Mr. Bhawnani’s experience, spanning 25 years in partner due diligence, proves invaluable to clients across Asia.
Tim Burroughs
Managing Editor
ASIAN VENTURE CAPITAL JOURNAL
Tim Burroughs is managing editor of Asian Venture Capital Journal, having joined the publication in May 2011. He is responsible for all editorial content put out under the AVCJ brand, including Asian Venture Capital Journal, AVCJtv, AVCJ Awards and AVCJ.com. Tim previously spent five years at China Economic Review, serving as editor-in-chief and then editorial director. Located in Greater China since 2003, during which time he has lived in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, Tim has been a China-based contributor for publications including The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, BBC and China Daily. Prior to moving to China, he trained and worked as a journalist in the UK. He was honored at the Society of Publishers in Asia awards in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and at the State Street Institutional Press Awards - Asia in 2012.
Bruce R. Crane
Managing Director
OMERS INFRASTRUCTURE
As Managing Director at OMERS Infrastructure, Bruce is responsible for leading infrastructure-related efforts in Asia and is based in Singapore.
He was previously based in New York, and was responsible for sourcing and leading investment opportunities in the transportation and power-related infrastructure markets in the Americas. His asset management experiences included Chicago Skyway, GNL Quintero S.A and Midland Cogeneration Venture.
Prior to joining OMERS Infrastructure, Bruce spent 10 years with UBS and Morgan Stanley, providing investment banking advisory services, and four years with Foster Wheeler as a field engineer.
Bruce holds a B.A.Sc. (Civil Engineering) from Lehigh University, and an MBA from Columbia University.
Bhavik Damodar
COO, Advisory and Partner - Deal Advisory
KPMG
Bhavik Damodar joined KPMG in 1998 and is the Chief Operating Officer of the Advisory practice and also leads Transaction Services’ efforts in the infrastructure sector. Mr. Damodar has deep experience on working with domestic and foreign investors on Indian and overseas transactions.
Mr. Damodar has extensive transaction experience and has worked for Indian and Global Private Equity, Pension and Sovereign funds anddomestics and global strategic players.
Within the infrastructure sector, Mr. Damodar has worked on over 300 transactions across the thermal power, renewable power, transmission, oil and gas, roads, airports, ports, waste management and construction sectors and has helped clients understanding the market, on financial diligence, on commercial diligence, on modelling for the transaction and during deal documentation and negotiations.
Anurag Das
CEO and Managing Director
INTERNATIONAL ASSET RECONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Anurag Das is CEO of IARC, a Blackstone-led ARC that manages its Indian distressed investments. Over two decades in the field of distressed and credit investing, he has led investments in some of the most complex global insolvencies. Earlier, he was managing partner of Rain Tree Capital, Head of Asia-Pacific at King Street, and worked in the US with King Street and Bain Capital Credit. Involved from the outset with India’s insolvency reforms, he writes an occasional expert column, has been invited before the Joint Parliamentary Committee, IBBI and a judicial colloquium, and serves on the Board of Governors of INSOL India. Mr. Das received an MBA from Harvard, a BA in Philosophy, Politics & Economics as a Rhodes Scholar from Oxford, and a B.Sc. in Physics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Udai Dhawan
Managing Director and Head of India
STANDARD CHARTERED PRIVATE EQUITY
Udai Dhawan is a Managing Director and the Head of India for Standard Chartered Private Equity. He has been with SCPE since 2008 and has over 22 years of experience in financial services. Prior to SCPE, Mr. Dhawan worked for 13 years in corporate investing, M&A and corporate finance, across various locations including New Delhi, Mumbai, San Francisco and Dallas. He has in the past worked in Kotak Mahindra Capital, Sabre Inc., JP Morgan & Co., and Arthur Andersen. Mr. Dhawan has an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and is also a chartered accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
Himanshu Dodeja
Managing Director and Head of Legal
BLACKSTONE INDIA
Himanshu Dodeja is a Managing Director, and Head of Legal, of Blackstone India, based in Mumbai. Mr. Dodeja focuses on mergers & acquisitions, private equity, capital market initiatives of the firm, and on all the legal matters. Mr. Dodeja is also on the board of various companies in India.
Before joining Blackstone in 2016, Mr. Dodeja was a partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas in Mumbai, where he focused on private equity, M&A transactions, special situations, and advised many other marquee private equity investors. Mr. Dodeja is licensed to practice in India and in New York. He also holds an LL.M. from NYU School of Law.
Daniel Dusek
Partner
KIRKLAND & ELLIS INTERNATIONAL LLP
Daniel Dusek is a partner in Kirkland’s Hong Kong office. Mr. Dusek has extensive experience advising leading global and regional private equity investors and corporations on complex, cross-border corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, disposals, auctions, leveraged buyouts, take-privates, spin-offs and joint ventures. Mr. Dusek is a well-regarded corporate/M&A lawyer by a number of legal publications. Mr. Dusek is recognized as a leading corporate/M&A lawyer by Chambers Asia and Chambers Global. Asian Legal Business selected him as one of the top 10 M&A lawyers in China in 2017.
Kaushal Ganeriwal
Executive Vice President
BARING PRIVATE EQUITY ASIA
Kaushal Ganeriwal joined BPEA in 2017. Immediately prior to joining BPEA, Mr. Ganeriwal spent three years at Altico Capital India as one of the founding members to build their structured finance lending practise. Mr. Ganeriwal has previously at ICICI Bank been involved in building their structure finance business using both onshore and offshore books of the bank, apart from stints at bank’s proprietary trading and distress assets businesses. Mr. Ganeriwal has also spent four years at Clearwater Capital Partners’ Mumbai office where he has been involved in building their special situations portfolio in India.
Mr. Ganeriwal holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and a B.Com. from Calcutta University. He is fluent in Hindi and English.
Nupur Garg
Regional Lead - South Asia, Private Equity & Venture Funds
IFC
Based in New Delhi, Nupur Garg oversees IFC’s investments into private equity and venture capital funds across the South Asia region. Her responsibilities include setting strategic direction, developing and maintaining the pipeline, execution of new transactions and oversight of the portfolio, including serving on fund advisory committees. The active portfolio currently has more than US$700 mn invested across 37 early stage and growth funds. Ms. Garg had joined IFC in mid-2007 as the Regional Risk Officer for South Asia, responsible for designing, piloting and integrating risk management frameworks within investment operations across IFC’s industry sectors.
Ms. Garg has deep experience in the South Asia region, including structuring and implementing complex business transactions and partnerships in a variety of settings. Prior to joining IFC, she was the Regional Chief Financial Officer covering South Asia for Wolters Kluwer, one of the world’s largest publishers of material for the scientific and technical sector. There, she was part of a 3 person team leading integration of 6 acquisitions and setting up independent business operations in the region. Previously, she has worked in finance and consulting roles at Discovery Networks and PwC. Ms. Garg holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management, has executive education from Harvard Business School and is a Chartered Accountant.
Bikash Jhawar
Partner
L&L PARTNERS
Bikash Jhawar’s practice focuses primarily on rendering corporate legal advisory, and assisting clients undertaking investments, Joint Ventures and M&A activities in India, or Indian clients looking at similar activities offshore.
He has a vast experience of Indian foreign investment regulations & practices, and is sought out for advice on structuring investments into India.
His work has covered multiple sectors including Logistics, Infrastructure, Media & Technology, Renewable Energy, Real Estate, Stressed Assets, Financial Services and Asset Management.
Mr. Jhawar, as part of the Insolvency and Restructuring Practice, has acted on mandates on behalf of resolution professional, committee of creditors and prospective and successful resolution applicants in the restructuring and resolution of companies undergoing corporate insolvency resolution process.
He also assists Indian and foreign clients in legal risk management, and continuous legal review & support of their operations in India.
Vaibhav Kakkar
Partner
L&L PARTNERS
Vaibhav Kakkar specialises in Corporate Mergers & Acquisitions and Regulatory work.
He has a unique mix of extensive regulatory & transactional expertise, and specializes in structuring transactions (especially cross-border), and advising on foreign investment / exchange laws, company law and securities laws.
Mr. Kakkar advises several global corporations on appropriate strategies in relation to investments in India and domestic & multinational clients on significant & complex corporate matters, including cross border Mergers & Acquisitions, Joint Ventures, and Private Equity transactions. He has also taken the lead in drafting & negotiating the entire spectrum of definitive agreements and commercial contracts in relation to the same.
He has an in-depth experience with industry-specific legal & regulatory issues in sectors including Retail, Real Estate, Telecommunications, Gaming, Hospitals, Pharma, Education Mutual Funds, Education and the Financial sector (Banking & Non-Banking).
Mr. Kakkar has been regularly advising & working with the Government on policy issues relating to company law, exchange control, and focusses on advocacy & policy development, dealing extensively on behalf of various clients with relevant governmental agencies including DIPP, FIPB on issues of foreign direct investment and MCA on issues of Company law.
Iqbal Khan
Partner
SHARDUL AMARCHAND MANGALDAS & CO.
Iqbal Khan is a Partner at the Firm, and a member of the Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions Practice Group. He advises some of the largest global financial and strategic investors, and specializes in private equity investments, private and public mergers and acquisitions (both domestic and cross-border), joint ventures and foreign investment laws.
Mr. Khan finished his J.D. from Columbia Law School (as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar) and LL.B. from The London School of Economics and Political Science. Mr. Khan has also worked at Kirkland & Ellis LLP, New York and at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York. He is enrolled with the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa and is also admitted to the New York Bar.
Mr. Khan has been recognized as the Dealmaker of the Year 2019, the Indian M&A Lawyer of the Year (Client Choice Awards 2018 by Lexology, which recognizes those law firm partners around the world that stand apart for the excellent client care they provide and the quality of their service), the Indian M&A Lawyer of the Year (ACQ5 Global Awards 2018), the winner of the M&A Awards 2018 (by Finance Monthly) and as a leading M&A, Private Equity and Corporate Lawyer by the RSG India Report.
Mr. Khan is also a director on the board of The Aga Khan Foundation (India), a private, not-for-profit, non-denominational, international development agency, and on the board of DCB Bank, a private sector bank.
Sanjay Kukreja
Partner
CHRYSCAPITAL
Mr. Sanjay Kukreja is Partner with ChrysCapital and is part of the core team that helped the firm scale from a startup to India’s leading private equity firm with over $3 billion under management in eighteen years. Mr. Kukreja joined ChrysCapital in April 2000 and currently leads the Business Services, Financial Services and Manufacturing verticals for the firm. Mr. Kukreja has been on the board of several companies such as Infogain, 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.
Pushkar Kulkarni
Principal - Infrastructure Private Investments
CPPIB
Pushkar Kulkarni is an Electronics Engineer from VJTI with a Management degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of management Studies, Mumbai. Before joining CPPIB, Mr. Kulkarni served as the Managing Director of Serco India with a board position. Serco was the 100% subsidiary of the British services firm Serco PLC, a FTSE 100 company then. Prior to Serco Mr. Kulkarni worked for 12+ years as the CEO of an Infrastructure Technology company, Efkon which was the 100% Indian subsidiary of a European Construction & Infrastructure giant, Strabag. During his times at Efkon he represented India at the International Standards Org (ISO) on several technical committees responsible for communication standards in road & transport infrastructure.
Prior experience of Mr. Kulkarni has been in Infrastructure broadly covering toll roads and traffic systems both from a technology and operations perspective. During his tenure he was involved in several M&A transactions including the disposal of Serco India post the parents’ decision to move out of India. He has worked on several marquee Infrastructure projects including:
1. Bandra – Worli Sea Link
2. Yamuna Expressway
3. Nationwide ETC
4. Indore BRTS
Post joining CPPIB he was responsible for the setting up CPPIBs Infrastructure practice in India. He also led the team that conceptualized and created India’s first private Infrastructure Trust (IndInfravit) in partnership with Allianz Capital Partners & L&T.
Shilpa Kulkarni
Co-Founder and Managing Director
ZODIUS FUNDS
Shilpa Kulkarni is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Zodius Funds and is based in Mumbai. She has over 22 years of experience across investing and operating companies in technology and business services.
Prior to founding Zodius, Ms. Kulkarni was part of the founding team at WNS and has held various senior management positions in building WNS from $20 million in revenues to its $1 billion IPO on NYSE.
Prior to WNS, she was a venture investor at eVentures India (eVI - a Joint Venture between Softbank and Newscorp), one of the first venture funds in the Indian tech eco-system in the late 90s. Her investments at eVI, included Mentorix (sold to Lionbridge) and Intigma (sold to Emptoris).
Prior to eVI, Ms. Kulkarni held investment banking and principal investing roles at JP Morgan Chase in New York. She worked on investments such as eCredit and Financial Engines.
Ms. Kulkarni began her career as an engineer with Citicorp Information Technology Industries Limited (CITIL, now Oracle Financial) in Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Ms. Kulkarni is on the Board of Zivame, Freshmenu, Culture Machine and Allygrow Technologies. Ms. Kulkarni holds an MBA degree from Fuqua School of Management, Duke University and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Mumbai University.
Cori Lable
Partner
KIRKLAND & ELLIS INTERNATIONAL LLP
Cori Lable is a partner in Kirkland & Ellis International LLP’s Hong Kong office, where she leads the International Risk and Investigations group. Ms. Lable concentrates her practice on advising multinational companies, private equity firms, and alternative investors throughout Asia on international regulatory risks related to their cross-border investments and operations, including corruption, money laundering, economic sanctions, and financial fraud. She has extensive experience defending clients in investigations and enforcement actions related to potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other U.S. securities laws, and in designing and implementing international risk compliance programs. Ms. Lable has been named as a leading anti-corruption practitioner by Legal 500 Asia-Pacific and Chambers Global, in which clients praised her “broad experience on compliance matters and internal investigations across Asia,” and described her as “really exceptional in terms of advice.”
Eric Marchand
Principal
UNIGESTION
Eric Marchand is Principal within the Private Equity team. He joined Unigestion in August 2012. Mr. Marchand began his career in 2003 with General Electric in the company's corporate finance and audit departments across various businesses. He then took over responsibility for GE Capital Equity's European funds portfolio and financial services investments. In 2010, Mr. Marchand joined CDC Group as Investment Manager focusing on the firm's Asian funds portfolio. Mr. Marchand holds a MSc in Management from EM Lyon business school in France and an undergraduate degree in Management and Applied Economics from the University of Paris Dauphine.
Shanti Mohan
Co-Founder and CEO
LETSVENTURE
Shanti Mohan is the Founder & CEO of LetsVenture - the pioneering tech platform organizing India's Private Markets.
In the last 5 years, LetsVenture has organized Startup Funding in India, and has recently launched its "LetsGrow" platform to organize growth stage funding. The company also engages with select Family Offices and Institutional Investors to provide custom investment solutions in the Startup & Venture asset class.
LetsVenture's current clientele include 3500 Angel Investors and 300 Funds from 23 countries who discover, diligence and invest in Indian Startups and VC Funds through the LV platform. The portfolio currently comprises of 160 companies and 4 VC Funds, with the 2014 portfolio at 34% IRR.
LetsVenture is backed by Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Ratan Tata, Rishad Premji (Wipro), Karan Singh Thakral, Neeraj Arora (Whatsapp), Rahul Mehta (DST Global), Rajan Anandan (Google) among other business leaders.
Ms. Mohan is a contributor to market regulator SEBI's Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee, active member of the Indian Venture Capital Association, and a member of Prime Minister's "Champions of Change".
LetsVenture is Ms. Mohan's second venture, with her first startup exit being Ionic Microsystems (a Westbridge funded company).
Gautam Narayan
Partner
APAX PARTNERS
Gautam Narayan is a Partner in the Services team, based in Mumbai. He has been with the firm since 2007 and has been involved in the Apollo Hospitals, Weather Investments, iGATE, GlobalLogic, Chola, Shriram City Union Finance and Zensar Technologies deals.
Prior to joining Apax Partners Mr. Narayan was a banker with Macquarie, where he specialised in advising clients in the telecom, media and technology sectors. Mr. Narayan holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and is a Chartered Accountant.
Bobby Pauly
Partner
TATA OPPORTUNITIES FUND
Bobby Pauly is a founding member of the Tata Opportunities Fund, a USD 600 million third-party private equity fund that invests in attractive off-market transactions leveraging the network and relationships of the Tata group. Based in Mumbai, Bobby champions new investment opportunities and drives value creation as the fund's nominee on the Board of select portfolio companies. Bobby joined Tata Capital in 2007 and has helped conceptualize, nurture and build the firm's private equity franchise, which today manages about USD 1 billion in AUM.
Prior to this, for 7 years, Bobby served at a strategy consultant at Tata Strategic Management Group, where he helped establish his firm's private equity practice. Bobby started his career with the TVS Group.
Bobby secured his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, and graduated from the Mechanical Engineering program of College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University. In the year 2000, the Confederation of Indian Industry honoured Bobby as a Young Business Leader of Tomorrow.
Will Poole
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
CAPRIA
Will Poole is co-founder and Managing Partner at Capria and Unitus Ventures.
In 2012, Mr. Poole co-founded Unitus Ventures, now India’s leading venture seed fund supporting startups innovating for the masses. In 2015, Mr. Poole co-founded Capria, a global investment firm advancing the next generation of local impact fund managers in emerging markets, specializing in the “missing middle” finance opportunity. Capria and Unitus Ventures are affiliates of Unitus Group, a premier financial services group operating in SE Asia and Latin America since 2000. Mr. Poole's career started by founding two startups at the dawn of the PC era, working in the early days at Sun Microsystems, and pioneering e-commerce at eShop which was acquired by Microsoft in 1996. At Microsoft, he ran the $13B global Windows business and started their product focus on emerging markets. Mr. Poole received a degree in Computer Science from Brown University.
Natarajan R
Chief Operating Officer & CFO
RNT CAPITAL
Fondly familiar to most in the Financial, Investor and Entrepreneurial world as Nats, Natarajan is the Chief Operating Officer and CFO of RNT Capital, which manages UC RNT Fund of USD 355 Mn from University of California, since inception in July 2016.
With over 27 years of experience in the diverse functions Nats served proven leadership roles in Organization Building & Scaling, Governance and Compliance across an eclectic array of business fields.
Prior to UC RNT Fund, As the MD and CFO since inception (june 2006) of one of India’s oldest and home grown Venture Firm, Helion raised 3 funds aggregating over US $ 600 Million, invested 73 investments across various sectors and stages in India and the US, Nats lead over 200 share holder agreements and 30 exits.
Apart from Due Diligence, Deal Structuring and Closing, Nats continues to work for rapid scaling of portfolio companies by helping in governance, finance, business planning and operational efficiencies. In addition, he is also responsible for Internal Fund Finances and Investor Relations.
Before joining Helion, he was Global CFO and Head of support services at Tavant Technologies Inc., a US$60M software services company where he led key initiatives of scaling the company from USD 19M to 60 million and 200 employees to 1100 employees within a span of three years.
Prior to Tavant, he worked 10+ years in Wipro corporation across many functions. Wipro electronic Peripherals was accorded the Best IT Usage award by NASSCOM in the ICT category in Sept 2003, for initiatives led by him as CIO.
Apart from various boards of investee companies, he also serves on the Board of studies at Christ University, Bangalore; Bethany Educational Institutions, Bangalore; Jain college for Women at Chennai, trustee of Youth for Seva – A eight-year-old NGO focusing on Child Education now serving over 5500 children across 8 states, including many tribal children.
Nats is in the governing body of Tie Bangalore and secretary for last 5 years, and also served in the expert team advised RBI, SEBI and Government of India on the start up policies and currently assisting NSE in their SME listing platform.
Harsha Razdan
Partner and Head, Consumer Markets
KPMG
Harsha Razdan is Partner and Lead, Consumer Markets for KPMG in India. With over 20 years of experience in business consulting and consumer markets across Asia-Pacific and Europe, he has served clients in the consumer goods, agri business and retail domains.
Over the years, Mr. Razdan has partnered with large organisations in their transformation journeys and has helped them scale up their operations. Prior to joining KPMG in India, he was with Accenture in the United Kingdom for five years leading the digital customer business across consumer markets. He has also worked with Unilever and PepsiCo in various sales and marketing leadership roles in India.
Areas of expertise
Large scale organisational transformation, growth and market entry strategy, sales effectiveness - frontline sales force and distributor management, net revenue management, omni channel strategy & digital customer experience for consumer markets, marketing and advertising effectiveness, supply chain and order-to-cash efficiency, operational improvement and cost reduction in overheads.
Education and qualification
- Master’s Degree in Management with a specialisation in Marketing, XLRI
- Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur
Karthik Reddy
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
BLUME VENTURES
Karthik Reddy is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Blume Ventures, one of India's leading early stage Venture funds. Blume focusses on seed to Pre-Series A stages of funding and has made over a 100 investments across its 7 year history.
Mr. Reddy's stints at American Express, Reuters Instinet and Bennett Coleman (Times Group) have given him a breadth of experience across the US and India in Financial Markets, Technology and Media. He is an alumni of IIT (Roorkee), IIM (Bangalore) and The Wharton School at Univ of Pennsylvania.
At Blume, he has led the majority of the investments, and advises and serves on the boards of some of the leading investments at the firm - Belong, Exotel, Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Healthify, Mettl, Nowfloats, Railyatri amongst other emerging stars.
Blume has had early success through significant exits in companies such as Minjar (to Nutanix), Runnr (to Zomato), Taxiforsure (to Ola), Promptec (to Havells) and Zipdial (to Twitter), Mettl (to Mercer) and E2E (partial exit with IPO listing on NSE Emerge).
Neeraj Roy
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
HUNGAMA DIGITAL MEDIA
Neeraj Roy is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Hungama Digital Media. Under his leadership, Hungama today has become the largest Digital Media Company in South Asia.
Mr. Roy was recently voted amongst the ‘Top Ten mobiThinkers’ and ‘50 Most influential People in Mobile Entertainment’ globally.
Mr. Roy was also awarded the Sun Microsystems- Economic Times Young Leader award in 2001 and voted as 25 Young Leaders In The New Millennium by Business India. He is an active speaker at various international forums like Mobile World Congress, CTIA, World Handset Forum etc and on several domestic and international committees advising on the global Mobile & Digital Entertainment economy. Mr. Roy has served as Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum - Asia (MEF) and is currently Vice President of IAA – India Chapter.Known as an innovator, and sought for his vision in the digital and mobile media and entertainment industry, Mr. Roy leads a team of highly motivated professionals at Hungama.
A serial entrepreneur, Mr. Roy has incubated several businesses such as Hungama.com, which is South Asia’s largest Digital Entertainment service with over 20 million active consumers offering an integrated Movie and Music Service.Hungama also has a partnership with WPP’s JWT offering Digital Marketing Services to clients worldwide.
Stéphane Ryelandt
Senior Investment Manager
SPDG
Prior to joining SPDG in an investment management role, Stéphane Ryelandt was head of financial sector and private equity funds at a development finance institution, where he developed an expertise in emerging markets investments.
Mr. Ryelandt has a proven track record in fund investments and private equity transactions over the full investment cycle, including active involvement at board and management level. He has also gained experience in strategic planning and M&A projects across various industries.
Mr. Ryelandt has a Master’s degree in management from the Louvain School of Management.
Anurag Sachdeva
Director - India & South East Asia
ROVIO
Anurag Sachdeva is a business professional with 17+ years of experience in achieving sustainable growth across various product lines in the digital/mobile/entertainment ecosystem. In his current role he is working to set up a nest for the Angry Birds in India & Southeast Asia.
Kunal Shah
Founder
CRED & FREECHARGE
Kunal Shah is the Founder of CRED & FreeCharge. Post FreeCharge's acquisition by Snapdeal in 2015, Mr. Shah spent time with Y-Combinator and Sequoia Capital India as an advisor and recently launched CRED. Mr. Shahl has a been a serial entrepreneur and also a voracious reader, and is fascinated by the human mind & behavioral economics
Niren Shah
Managing Director
NVP (NORWEST) INDIA
Niren Shah is a Managing Director at Norwest (NVP) India and has been leading NVP India for over 10 years. Mr. Shah brings more than 20 years of Investing, entrepreneurial, financial and operating experience from leading global financial institutions to consumer and technology companies.
Mr. Shah focuses on both Private equity and late stage Venture investments with special interest in sectors such as Financial Services, Internet, Consumer and Technology. Mr. Shah has overseen more than 30 investments at NVP India and directly facilitated 14 such investments. Investments include Cholamandalam Finance, Pepperfry, IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya, Jain Irrigation, RBL Bank, Quikr.com, Swiggy.com, RevX, Shriram City Union, Yes Bank, Five Star and Kotak Bank. Mr. Shah also has a strong exit recorfhas overseen 15 exits of which he has directly facilitated significant exits for 9 companies.
Prior to joining NVP India, Mr. Shah 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, Mr. Shah was part of the original team at Baazee.com, Inc (which was eventually sold to eBay). Before his entrepreneurial journey, Mr. Shah was an investment banker with KPMG focusing on the Financial Services and Technology spaces and prior to that, a Registered Equity Dealer on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Mr. Shah is a rank holder Chartered Accountant and a Gold medallist Masters in Commerce from University of Mumbai.
Ranjit Shah
Managing Partner and Co-Founder
GAJA CAPITAL
Mr Shah is a managing partner and co-founder of Gaja Capital and is based in Mumbai. Prior to co-founding Gaja Capital in 2005, Mr Shah had over 24 years of operating experience as an entrepreneur and manager.
Over 13 years at Gaja Capital, Mr Shah has led investments in the consumer and financial services sectors. He currently serves on the board of three of Gaja Capital’s active portfolio companies.
Prior to co-founding Gaja Capital in 2005, Mr Shah has held CXO roles in the telecom, technology and luxury sectors and also worked with leading investment banking and management consulting firms in India. As an entrepreneur, Mr Shah co-founded an asset finance company which he took public. He had been an active public markets investor and has also made personal private equity and corporate venture capital investments.
Mr Shah has an MBA from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from IIT Bombay. He is a member of the CII – PE/VC National Committee and is closely involved with the Ross School’s activities in India.
Vinay Singh
Partner
FIRESIDE VENTURES
Vinay Singh is a professional with over 10 years’ experience across brand management, marketing, sales, technology and analytics across Industries like FMCG, Consumer finance and Technology. Mr. Singh holds an MBA degree from IIM-Bangalore and a B.Tech from Cochin University. His previous stint included 7 years at Hindustan Unilever, where he was responsible for driving sales for various products and later managed marketing and innovation for a Rs 650Cr business. He then spent a year at BankBazaar.com, a financial services aggregator as Marketing head, where he was instrumental in scaling the consumer traction by 4X in a period of 6 months while increasing ticket size by 18%. On the strength of his performance, the Company was able to raise $60 million from Fidelity and Amazon. He then founded Stepni.com, where he was also CEO, an online marketplace for car repairs (first of its kind in India) and successfully exited from that venture when it was acquired by Quikr.com for its technology IP.
Padmanabh (Paddy) Sinha
Managing Partner
TATA OPPORTUNITIES FUND
Padmanabh (Paddy) Sinha is the Managing Partner for the flagship private equity fund platform 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. Mr. Sinha 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. Mr. Sinha has served on several corporate boards, including select Tata companies. He is the current Chairman of the Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA).
John R. Spence
Regional Head, M&A and Strategy, Asia
GENERALI ASIA
At Generali Asia, John Spence is responsible for formulating and executing mergers and acquisitions, fostering strategic alliances and partnerships and leading regional corporate development initiatives to achieve Generali’s growth targets in Asia. In the Philippines, he is the Chairman of Generali Life Assurance Philippines, Inc.
Prior to joining Generali, Mr. Spence provided independent strategic advisory services for Asian cross border insurance and asset management transactions at Asian Capital Advisors and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW). At Macquarie Funds Group, he also had responsibility for Asian acquisitions and led a Korean asset management joint venture. At Manulife Financial, his region-wide responsibilities included mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships and wealth management. In Australia, Mr. Spence held senior executive roles at National Australia Bank and AMP.
Mr. Spence holds a Masters of Business Administration from Australian Graduate School of Management, Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University, is a Chartered Accountant, a Chartered Secretary, Senior Associate of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance, and a Certified Financial Planner. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Hong Kong Institute of Directors.
Venkattu Srinivasan
Group Head of Asset Reconstruction & Structured Credit and Member of Executive Board
KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK
Venkattu Srinivasan heads the Asset Reconstruction Division at Kotak Mahindra Bank. He pioneered the business of purchasing non-performing loans in India and was instrumental in establishing the Asset Reconstruction Division at the Bank. In his two decade innings at the Kotak, Mr. Srinivasan has played a crucial role in setting up several lending businesses such as commercial vehicle loans, tractor finance, construction equipment, farm equipment, SARAL business loans, etc.
Upasana Taku
Co-Founder and Director
MOBIKWIK
The first woman in India to lead a payments start up, Upasana Taku, has played an instrumental role in building Mobikwik as one of India’s largest digital financial services platform, with a well-entrenched network of over 3 million direct merchants and 260 million plus users. She has made an indelible mark on the startup ecosystem in India and has demonstrated what it takes to live ones dream.
Ms. Taku is widely recognised amongst the top women achievers in India, for her unfaltering contribution as the chief anchor, innovator and leader at MobiKwik. In recognition of her achievements in the tech startup ecosystem in India, Taku had featured by Forbes as one of the ‘Asia’s Women to Watch in 2016’. She was also felicitated at CNBC Young Turks Conclave 2017 with the ‘Young Business Women Award’. More recently, in August 2017, she was conferred with the ‘Best Woman Entrepreneur Award 2017’ by ASSOCHAM. She has also featured in the Fortune 40 Under 40 List in the year 2016.
She was also amongst the 112 first ladies who were recently felicitated by the President of India & was recognised as the first woman in India to lead a payments startup. Ms. Taku has recently featured in the global list of ‘Top 100 Women in Fintech’, announced by Lattice80, a Global Fintech Hub headquartered in London, in collaboration with Miss Kaya, a lifestyle driven financial platform for the modern woman – led by Gina Heng.
Ms. Taku comes with a strong background in payments. She has worked as a Senior Product Manager at PayPal in the Silicon Valley. She has also been associated with HSBC in San Diego, USA. In 2008 she decided to return to India and contribute to the ecosystem back home. A year later she co-founded MobiKwik.
Ms. Taku is a Bachelor in Engineering (B.E.) from NIT Jalandhar and holds a Masters in Management Science from Stanford University. She has 13 years of experience in Payments & Financial Services and has been an entrepreneur in India for close to 9 years.
Ms. Taku is an inspiration to many young women who are dreaming to start something of their own and become entrepreneurs. She strikes a balance between work and life with a positive attitude.
Wen Tan
Co-Head of Private Equity Asia Pacific, Private Markets
ABERDEEN STANDARD INVESTMENTS
Wen Tan is a senior investment professional and investment committee member in Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Asia Pacific private markets division, which encompasses infrastructure, private equity and real assets. Mr. Tan started his career as a chartered accountant with KPMG's financial services division in London where he worked primarily with Asia Pacific banking groups including HSBC and Standard Chartered. He subsequently moved into investment banking as an M&A banker with Lazard, initially as an execution specialist across a range of sectors and then as a specialist in the financial institutions group. Mr. Tan moved to the alternative assets buyside in 2004 when he joined a Hong Kong family office, Search Investment Group, and has since focused purely on investing in illiquid alternatives. Mr. Tan was a Partner at FLAG prior to joining Aberdeen Standard Investments via the firm’s acquisition in 2015. Mr. Tan is conversant in Mandarin, Cantonese and Bahasa Malaysia, and holds a BA from Cambridge University.
Manas Tandon
Managing Director, Private Equity Asia
PARTNERS GROUP
Manas Tandon is the Head of India for Partners Group and a member of the Private Equity Directs Investment Committee. Partners Group manages over USD 75 billion in assets under management across Private Equity, Infrastructure, Debt and Real Estate. Prior to joining Partners Group, he served as a Director at TPG Growth and prior to that he was with Matrix Partners India. In the first half of his career, Mr. Tando was engaged in designing and selling cutting edge telecom solutions for early start-ups such as MaxComm Technologies (acquired by Cisco Systems) and Camiant Inc (now part of Oracle).
He has earned an MBA in finance from the Wharton School where he was a Palmer Scholar, a Bachelors in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and holds 8 US patents. Mr. Tando is a member of the Mumbai chapter of the Entrepreneurs' Organization. His current and past investments include Aavas Financiers, Healthium Medtech, Lenskart and Dailyhunt.
Nishant Verman
Head of Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships
FLIPKART GROUP
Nishant Verman leads Corporate Development and Strategic Partnership for the Flipkart Group, where he focuses on capital raising, acquisition, strategic investments and strategic business development across Flipkart, Myntra/Jabong and PhonePe.
At Flipkart, Mr. Verman led the $16 billion investment from Wal-Mart, and previously from $4 billion fundraise from Softbank, Tencent, Microsoft and eBay. Under Mr. Verman’s leadership the Flipkart Corporate Development team has completed marquee transactions including acquisition of Jabong, acquisition of Liv.ai, acquisition of Upstream Israel and minority investments in Blackbuck, MapMyIndia and others. Mr. Verman presently serves on the Board of MapMyIndia and TinyStep.
Previously Mr. Verman was an investment professional with Canaan Partners, a global Venture Capital fund with AUM of $3.5 billion. As part of the India team, Mr. Verman focused on Mobility, Enterprise Software & Cloud.
Prior to Canaan, Mr. Verman co-founded Groovebug, a personalized music platform for the iPad, where he focused on product development and marketing. He also worked at Microsoft Singapore focusing on strategic partnerships across China and India.
Mr. Verman has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University, and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.