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 Delgado-Moreira is a Vice Chairman at Hamilton Lane, based in the firm's Hong Kong office, where he is an Investment Committee member and oversees the firm's Asian 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 Instituto Nacional de Industria).
Mr. Delgado-Moreira 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amit Gupta
Founding Partner
NEWQUEST CAPITAL PARTNERS
Amit Gupta is a founding Partner of NewQuest and oversees the firm’s India and Southeast Asia business as well as investments in the power and financial services sectors. Amit has more than 16 years of industry experience.
Prior to co-founding NewQuest, he was a Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch's (BAML) Asia Private Equity group where he led the India business and oversaw investments the energy and financial services sectors across the Asia Pacific. Amit has also served in other roles in BAML, including Corporate Principal Investments based in Hong Kong and Investment Banking based in Mumbai.
Prior to working at BAML, Amit was a software engineer based in Mumbai and the United States. Amit has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, where he was placed on the Director's Merit List for his performance, and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from REC Kurukshetra, where he received the University gold medal. Amit is fluent in English and Hindi.
Kanchan Jain
Managing Director
BARING PRIVATE EQUITY ASIA
Kanchan Jain has 22 years of experience across financial markets in Europe & Asia across deal origination, structuring, underwriting, portfolio & risk and fund raising. Prior to joining BPEA Ms. Jain spent 8 years focused on the mid-market corporate sector in India, most recently heading & managing Indian Private Debt Fund at Religare Credit Advisors Limited (RCAL), and prior to that as Chief Risk Officer & Board member for Religare Finvest Limited, a mid-market focused NBFC, responsible for managing risk across all businesses. Before joining Religare, Ms. Jain worked for 10 years in London as Managing Director at HSBC, and prior to that as Director at Barclays Capital in the Structured Credit business. Before her time in London she worked in debt capital markets covering Asia, based out of Hong Kong with Peregrine Fixed Income Limited across debt syndication, loan trading & risk function.
Ms. Jain has lived and worked in India, Hong Kong & the UK and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from VNIT and MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Sanjay Kukreja
Managing Partner
CHRYSCAPITAL
Mr. Sanjay Kukreja is Managing 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 & Real Assets
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.
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 & Managing Partner
CAPRIA
Will Poole is co-founder and Managing Partner at Capria and Unitus Ventures.
In 2012, Will co-founded Unitus Ventures, now India’s leading venture seed fund supporting startups innovating for the masses. In 2015, Will 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. Will'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. Will received a degree in Computer Science from Brown University.
Outside of work, Will is an avid tandem cyclist and photographer, and he likes to sail when it’s not raining.
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, Harsha 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
Neeraj Roy
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
HUNGAMA DIGITAL MEDIA
Speaker bio is coming soon.
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.
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.
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).
Rebecca Victoria Smith
Head of Listings and Capital Markets, APAC ex-China
NASDAQ
Rebecca is head of origination, capital markets relationships, business development and client relationships in Asia. Rebecca has had 20 year’s capital markets experience. Rebecca was Managing Director, APAC for Nasdaq (2000-2012), Co-Head of Client & Issuer Marketing for Hong Kong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (2012-2013) and Executive Director, APAC Origination for Deutsche Bank AG (2013-2016). Rebecca is a permanent resident of Hong Kong and is currently based in Hong Kong covering the region
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
Speaker bio is coming soon.
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
Speaker bio is coming soon.
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.
Xiaolin Zheng
Investment Director
JD.COM
Xiaolin is a Director in JD’s Strategic Investment team, and is responsible for developing and implementing the group strategy of JD via investments and M&A.
Prior to JD, Xiaolin was an Investment Director in LeEco’s Corporate Finance team. Between 2014 and 2015, she co-founded and held the title of Head of Finance and Business Development at YouJieYouHuan, a China P2P start up fintech company based in Beijing.
Xiaolin started her career as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in 2009, and was an associate in Deutsche Bank’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications team between 2011-2014. She was born and raised in China and received a full scholarship to study in Singapore and the US, graduating with a First-Honor Bachelor Degree (Major in Quantitative Finance) from the National University of Singapore.