He has over 16 years of investment banking experience across sectors including financial services, consumer and business services. Additionally, he has wide experience of working across aviation and metals & mining sectors. 

Prior to joining Avendus, he worked for over 13 years at Rothschild India. At Rothschild, he was responsible for coverage and execution of financial services and aviation verticals. He has rich experience of working on multiple cross border transactions in M&A, private equity syndication and IPO advisory. 

Anshul has spent some early years of his career working with Lazard’s investment banking team. 

He holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a Bachelor of Technology in Production Engineering from Pantnagar University.
 

He has been with Bank of America for 8 years, starting out as a Director in the Financial Institutions team in Mumbai in 2010. He has been part of various transitions within the FI group in India and took charge as Head of the business in Oct 2013. He has presided over the restructuring of the FI coverage model and managed the transition from a high asset growth strategy to a more return focused growth in revenues.

Prior to this stint with BofAML, Shankar has worked in the FI space for the last 13 years both in India and in various locations internationally. He spent 3 years with Standard Chartered Bank in Capital markets and then as Head of FI for South India. Prior to this he worked with American Express Bank for 10 years from 1996. In AEB, he had long stints in Japan and Germany as a Product Manager and in London as a Relationship Manager handling the Israel, Irish and Scandinavian markets.

Shankar is a Cost Accountant and a Bachelor of Commerce from the Mumbai University.

Ashwin began his career with ICICI Limited (the development finance institution that later merged into ICICI Bank) and joined AZB & Partners in 2004. He has been a partner at the Firm since 2007.

Although Ashwin’s initial focus at the Firm was on banking and structured finance, his practice areas now include mergers and acquisitions, the distressed debt markets, fintech and private equity transactions. Ashwin is also active in the derivatives and aviation finance space.

In recent times, he has advised Fairfax in its acquisition of Thomas Cook in India, The Royal Bank of Scotland in its sale of its mortgage and credit card businesses to Ratnakar Bank and ING Vysya Bank in relation to its proposed merger with Kotak Mahindra Bank, besides acting on a number of private equity growth investments in both publicly listed and privately held companies. He is also a part of the regulatory advisory practice at the Firm and regularly advises clients on banking and securities laws and regulations.

Ashwin has been recognized as a leading individual by Asia Pacific Legal 500 for Banking & Finance since 2012, by Chambers & Partners for Aviation since 2013 and Banking & Finance since 2014 and by Who’s Who Legal for Mergers & Acquisitions since 2013.

Alok is also an active angel investor, co-founder of Indian Angel Network, and on the board of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Delhi.

Prior to starting Indifi, Alok setup and ran Canaan Partners' venture investment business in India, investing in high growth technology and internet startups. Earlier, Alok co-founded JobsAhead.com, a leading web-based recruitment business in India, which was acquired by Monster.com, the global leader in online recruitment.Alok earned a BE in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and a MS in computer science from UC Berkeley.

Prior to this Sachin has worked with Religare, ANB Amro bank, ICICI and Citi. He has establishing a unique digital credit business in Supply Chain Finance and is very passionate about applying technology to lending solutions.

Mr. Hooda is a Mechanical Engineer from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and a Master in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. He has also completed his advanced Studies in International Housing Finance from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Furthermore he has over 11 years of academic experience and was a Visiting Professor of Finance at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Mr. Hooda is extremely passionate about fitness. A short distance runner often completing distances of 5 kms in less than 20 minutes. He is also a national level footballer and a yoga enthusiast.

She joined Avendus in 2007 and has over 12 years of investment banking experience across sectors including financial services, consumer (including food & beverages, education, fashion & lifestyle) and business services comprising of logistics and payments. She has a wide experience across private equity fund raising, M&A and structured solutions with a track record of closing 20 transactions, few of which being the most complex ones in the history of Avendus. 

Prior to joining Avendus, she had a brief stint with Accenture Consulting. 

Abha holds an MBA from S P Jain Institute of Management and Research and is also a ranker Chartered Accountant.

During this period, the Funds have established a strong track record of profitable exits from investments and have received awards and accolades at the CNBC Awaaz Real Estate Awards. (“Real Estate Fund of the Year” for 2016-17)

Sharad has over 16 years of experience in Real Estate investing, lending and fund raising. Prior to joining MORE, Sharad was associated with ICICI Prudential AMC, wherein he was part of commercial rental office and mezzanine fund and was leading the fund raising exercise. Prior to that, he has worked with ICICI Bank for 5 years where his last role was National Head, Structured Products, Corporate & Realty Finance Business. In the past Sharad has also worked with ASK Property Investment Advisors, First Rand Bank and Citibank.

Sharad is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Committee on Real Estate & Housing. He is also a member of IMC Chamber of Commerce & Industry committee on Urban Development, Smart Cities, Real Estate and Infrastructure. Sharad is also a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
Sharad is a Chartered Accountant and a Commerce graduate from Delhi University.

He has over 24 years of experience spread across investment banking, private equity, lending and structured finance in Indian real estate. He has played pivotal role in shaping markets, providing Agency services while working with International Property Consulting firms right from their inception in India. He was part of core team involved in setting up of property services group at Bank, as well as pioneering investments in Structured finance on allowance of FDI through Automatic route in Indian real estate.

He was also Director and Head Investments at Shapoorji Pallonji Investments where he worked to close ~USD 250 million platform with CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan and Investment Board) to invest in yield generating commercial office assets. As Senior Vice President- Real Estate Asia, at Wells Fargo Bank he was Head of Origination, having invested and successfully exited ~USD 500 Million.

Puneet has also worked with Edelweiss Finance, ICICI Bank, Colliers International and Jones Lang LaSalle. Puneet is Eminent Member of RICS and is Chairperson – South Asia of its list of global Assessors.

Munish is an alumnus of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and seed consultant for Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. He’s been an invited speaker at the Wharton Business School at University of Pennsylvania.

Smita has over 25 years of experience in banking and finance. Before joining Omidyar Network, Smita served as senior program director at CAFRAL, a global think tank promoted by the Reserve Bank of India, where she led the industry and policy dialogues on strategy, risk management, digital banking, financial inclusion, and governance for bank CEOs and directors. Prior to her time at CAFRAL, Smita was business head, Gramshakti at Fullerton India Credit Company, a Temasek subsidiary, where she set up a business model to offer loans and other third party products to rural customers.

She began her career with ICICI Bank, where she held various leadership positions including head of rural and agricultural insurance business, head of strategy, head of e-channels, head of CRM, and head of international resources. She was instrumental in introducing innovative products and channels to improve convenience and access for customers. Smita has also taught microfinance courses as a visiting faculty member at NMIMS School of Business Management.

Smita volunteers with the Indian Cancer Society and spearheads one of the largest pan-India projects for providing financial grants for treatment of poor cancer patients. She was also instrumental in conceptualizing and launching the first debt mutual fund for supporting cancer cures.

A Chartered Accountant, Smita graduated from Sydenham College in Mumbai and attended executive programs at Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management.

Sandeep has over 22 years of multi-functional experience in Commercial Banking, Investment Banking, Corporate Banking, Project Finance and Asset Reconstruction. Sandeep has been successful in turning around various businesses during his long spanning career and has been instrumental in guiding them on high growth trajectory. 

Prior to joining Avendus, Sandeep worked with RBL Bank for four years as head of Commercial Banking. He was responsible for advising mid-market businesses to raise equity capital. Additionally, he was also responsible for setting up the investment banking business for the Bank. Prior to RBL, he worked with Religare as Managing Director for its investment banking business. 

Before Religare, he has spent 10 years with Citibank’s commercial banking business where he was a part of the initial team that was set up to build the business.  He successfully built the bank’s North India franchise and subsequently spearheaded the mid-market and SME businesses. Additionally, he has also worked with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s corporate banking team and has spent 4 years with the project finance and asset reconstruction team of Industrial Finance Corporation of India, where he started his career. 

Sandeep has a successful track record of building highly profitable and sustainable businesses. He is widely acknowledged by clients for his superior understanding on making businesses profitable and building long term credible relationships with high quality promoters and business owners.

Mr. Goenka was the Founder MD & CEO of Essel Finance, part of the USD 7 billion ZEE TV Group, that managed a real estate domestic fund portfolio apart from a PMS and offshore fund. Prior  to that he was the National Director- Capital Transactions for Knight Frank India. He also set up and led a rental yield fund in a joint venture with Anand Rathi, managing a portfolio of pre-leased commercial assets over 3 cities.

Suryoday Small Finance Bank was launched in Jan’2017. Suryoday Small Finance Bank has 26 Bank branches, in addition to over 215 Door Step Service Centers spread across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Maharashtra.

Baskar has more than 25 years of experience in banking and financial services. He has worked in organizations like Cholamandalam, HDFC Bank and GE Capital in various leadership positions, handling diverse portfolios in Products, Quality & Operations.

His dream has always been to create a world class financial services organisation with a focus on best in class ‘employee and customer experience’.

Baskar Babu is a Mechanical Engineer from SRM University, Chennai with a Masters’ in Business Administration from the School of Management Studies, Pondicherry.

At McKinsey & Company, Krishnan has served over 15 banks and NBFCs on a variety of topics. These topics include product design, risk strategy and risk model development, operations transformation and lean processes, digital and mobile delivery of services and technology architecture. Krishnan has vast policy and regulatory experience and was a core part of the policy group within McKinsey & Company financial services practice. Krishnan has assisted various committees of RBI, IRDA and Ministry of Finance on topics ranging financial inclusion, payments etc. Krishnan’s cross-functional expertise across technology and retail financial services has helped him create the disruptive innovation that Kissht.

Krishnan has a B.Tech from IIT Delhi, and an MBA in strategy and finance from the Yale School of Management. He has a keen interest in photography and is an avid squash player and hiker.

He has over 18 years of investment banking experience across sectors including technology, media and diversified industries. His areas of expertise include M&A advisory, private placements, leveraged finance and capital markets.

Prior to joining Avendus, Pankaj worked with JP Morgan’s investment banking team for over 11 years. During his stint with JP Morgan, he led several marquee transactions amounting to over 10 Bn USD across various industries. Before JP Morgan, he worked with DSP Merrill Lynch’s investment banking team for 4 years.

Pankaj holds an MBA from IIM Calcutta and a Bachelor of Engineering from Government College of Engineering, Pune. He is a speaker at leading industry events focused on internet technology.

Ganesh previously served as Director and Head of Asia for Unitus Inc., backing commercially sustainable solutions in inclusive finance. At Lok and Unitus, Ganesh advised several pioneering financial services leaders including Ujjivan, SKS Microfinance, Equitas, and Bandhan. Prior to Unitus, he led the entry of Silicon Valley-based VC firm, Greylock Partners into the Indian market and co-founded Travelguru.com (acquired by Travelocity). Early in his career, Ganesh worked on Fortune 500 consumer and financial services clients at Infosys.

Ganesh's current and past investment and entrepreneurial advisory roles include Unitus Seed Fund, Village Capital, the Indian Angel Network, Accion Venture Lab, GSF, IIM-Ahmedabad and ISB, and he has been featured on Bloomberg, CNBC, and The Economic Times. His current investments include IndiaMart, NeoGrowth, Coins, CreditMantri and Fisdom. Ganesh previously served on the boards of Hippocampus Learning Centres, Rural Shores and Shubham (exit to Premji-Invest). Ganesh has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and Masters and Engineering degrees from IIM Kolkata and IIT-Varanasi, respectively.

He has built large lending business across Secured and UnSecured Lending. Sandeep was part of the founding team at Barclays Bank PLC in India as the Director and Head of Retail Assets and Banking Strategy.

He has worked with HDFC ltd, Bank of America, American Express, Max New York Life Insurance Co. Mr Mehta is an MBA from SP Institute of Management & Research and a graduate in Economics.

Prashanth holds a bachelors degree from the University of New South Wales in Engineering and a Masters in Bioinformatics from Stanford University.

Prior to being an entrepreneur, he was a venture capitalist with Matrix Partners India and led the healthcare investments of the firm (Cloudnine, Centre for Sight, Mewar, etc.). Earlier, he was an Engagement Manager in Mckinsey & Co’s India practice, serving several pharmacos and healthcare organizations in marketing and manufacturing. Prior to Mckinsey, he was an Operations Manager in ITC Limited. He is an MBA from the Indian School of Business and graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

EarlySalary is a Fintech Start-Up which uses new age technology for lending funds. The company aims to deliver a revolutionary new business model set to change the lending market in India by introducing ultra short term loans.

Prior to this, Akshay was associated with brands like Future Retail Ltd, PolicyBazaar.com, Big Bazaar and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd. An exemplary leader, Akshay brings with him a rich experience of 12 years in strategic planning and marketing. He has been conferred as one of the Most Talented CMO of the year award in 2013 – 2014 in the retail space, by CMO Asia.

As the Chief Executive Officer at EarlySalary, Akshay oversees the implementation of the company’s product strategy and is focused towards building the business and building EarlySalary as a Financial Institution. Akshay has a sharp business mind-set with attention to details. An unwavering passion for customer service, he believes that one of the biggest features and the most significant competitive edge of any company is giving personalized attention to the customers and this is what he and his team strive to achieve.

In his leisure time he likes to go for short trips, exploring new places and spend time with his family.

Gaurav has played a key part in Capital Float’s evolution of becoming the leading digital co-lending model for SME lending. He was the COO of Gokaldas Exports and possesses immense experience in operations and complex supply chain management. Gaurav holds an MBA from Stanford University and graduated from Christ University in Bangalore with a distinction in commerce.

During early part of work in ICICI group, Brahmanand was responsible for implementing ACE programme funded by USAID for supporting post harvest agri/horticulture business projects finance  and technical assistance to agribusiness companies.

Mr. Kanvaty has demonstrated thought leadership in new applications of technology to business process automation and has experience in launching various credit card, e-Commerce and mobile banking products with operational exposure. He has experience in Financial Inclusion and has spearheaded the strategy and implementation of various products including M-POS/ Mobile Wallet.

He was the co-founder and CEO of CashTech Solutions, a leading Cash Management vendor in Asia, which was acquired by Nasdaq listed Fundtech. Iyer has previously worked with Accenture. He is a management graduate from Indian Institution of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and an Engineer from Mumbai University, India.

A member of the FICCI Committee on Real Estate, Vikram brings extensive experience across several functions of the Indian mortgage & Real Estate sector.
Moved to HDFC Realty Ltd. in Jan'10 with the sole purpose of transforming the company. Within 8 years, HDFC REALTY Ltd. is already one of the most established and respected brands in Real Estate Industry having won various awards in the process. He has worked in HDFC Realty as National Head, the job involved firmly establishing and expanding HDFC Realty's operations in the Real Estate Advisory business. During this tenure the employee strength had gone up from 50 employees to over 400 employees with a presence in 18 cities and a revenue growth of over 200 % year on year.

Vikram is a passionate speaker with keen insights on issues relating to real estate such as Affordable Housing, Capital Markets, Investments in Real Estate and Venture Capital. His experience lies in new initiatives, turnarounds and profit centre operations. Vikram is also a regular long-distance running enthusiast  regularly participating in marathons across the globe.

Prior to this, he was the India CEO at GE Money, which included an NBFC and HFC business across diversified retail products. He was credited with turning the P&L into profitability in 2009, post the credit crisis in the personal loans portfolio. He has also served as the CMO and BD Head for GE Capital India, and as the Business Leader for home loans and loans against property with GE Money. Prior to his entry into financial services, he has worked in the telecom industry with Motorola in India and the US. He has also had a stint with Cadence India post his undergraduate degree in Engineering.

Rajeev is a B. Tech from IIT Kanpur and has a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad.

Krishnava has closely worked with several large corporate groups, investors, private equity funds and renowned banks and financial institutions. He has also worked closely with both the government at the centre and state governments in India while advising on several transactions including disinvestments of public sector undertakings and framing of policies. Clients have deeply appreciated his strong financial, accounting and business acumen, which helps in providing a well-rounded commercially prudent legal advice to clients.

Krishnava has been identified by India Business Law Journal as one of India’s top 100 lawyers and is mentioned amongst the India A-List lawyers of 2017. Describing him as “a sharp, distinctive individual who has made the most of the booming Indian infrastructure market”. RSG Consulting (London) has identified Krishnava as being amongst the leading second generation of Indian corporate lawyers. Chambers and Partners has identified Krishnava as a leading lawyer in India.

Krishnava serves as an independent director on the board of directors and committees (including as Audit Committee Chairman) of several internationally reputed listed companies.

Krishnava started his legal career at Calcutta High Court. After a short stint at the high court, he joined ICICI Bank in Mumbai where he gained several years of experience in handling transactions involving stressed assets and the international banking sector. He joined Amarchand Mangaldas in 2005 and was made partner in 2007. He retired from Amarchand Mangaldas in June 2009 after which he founded Argus Partners.

In this role, Mr. Jijina oversees the entire spectrum of activities ranging from origination, investments, asset management, exits and new fund raising performed by a 650+ member management team. Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd. under Mr. Jijina's leadership, has grown rapidly and provides both wholesale and retail funding opportunities across sectors.

In real estate, the platform provides housing finance and other financing solutions across the entire capital stack ranging from early stage private equity, structured debt, senior secured debt, construction finance and flexi lease rental discounting. The wholesale business in the non-real estate sector includes separate verticals - Corporate Finance (CFG) and Emerging Corporate Lending (ECL). CFG provides customized funding solutions to companies across sectors such as infrastructure, renewable energy, roads, industrials, auto components etc. while ECL focuses on lending towards Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). PCHFL through its group companies provides customized strategies for institutional and retail investors such as Mumbai Redevelopment Fund focused on slum rehabilitation and Apartment Fund focused on bulk buying individual units (through Piramal Fund Management) and strategic partnerships with leading global pension funds such as CPPIB, APG and Ivanhoe Cambridge.

Mr. Jijina has been recognized with several leadership accolades namely Asia One: Global India 2017, Business Leader of the Year: Global Real Estate Congress 2017, Visionary in Real Estate Financing – NDTV Property Awards 2017 and Entrepreneur of the Year in the financial services industry by Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards (APEA) in 2017.

Prior to this, Mr. Jijina was the Managing Director of Piramal Realty where he was responsible for a portfolio of real estate development projects and oversaw all aspects of their execution. He was also the Executive Director of Piramal Sunteck Realty. He joined the Piramal Group in 2001 as Vice President, Treasury, and was instrumental in securing debt at the lowest cost for the group, setting new benchmarks in the debt market. Mr. Jijina started his career with Rallis, a TATA Group company, where over a span of more than a decade, he held several pivotal positions in corporate finance and treasury.

of a Apollo Health Street, a leading healthcare outsourcing firm and one of the top five in its space globally. Before that he worked as a consultant with McKinsey, with the corporate finance team at ANZ and as an entrepreneur at Emedlife, one of the first corporate healthcare advisory firms in India that eventually merged with the Apollo Group.

He has an immense experience in the NBFC sector with his previous assignment with Religare Finvest being President & COO and Magma Fincorp as the Vice President and Business Head for West Region.

His success story speaks through AU Small Finance Bank which has more than 9,00,000 customers, AUM of more than 16,000 crores and 500+ touch points in 10 states and 1 Union Territory within 1 year of starting the banking operations. AU is one of the largest companies headquartered in Rajasthan providing employment to more than 11,000 employees. AU Bank’s IPO received an overwhelming response and was oversubscribed 54 times. The company’s market cap is more than USD 2.5 billion and by virtue of its price to book ratio AU bank is one of the most expensive banks not just in India but in the world.

Mr. Sanjay Agarwal firmly believes that no Indian should be deprived of banking and banking should be effortless. Some of the unique ways in which, AU Bank is trying to make banking simple are -  minimal paper work, A/C opening through e-KYC enabled Tabs, bio-metric ATMs and monthly interest payouts. With his thoughts of financial inclusion and easy banking, he and his team are working towards redefining the banking in India.

Recently, he has been bestowed with the “Innovative Leader of the Year” by ET Now BFSI Award, 2018. He was chosen as “Our business Leader of the Year” at the ICAI Awards, 2017 and is the recipient of the “Rajasthan Entrepreneur and Excellence Award – Personality of the year (Finance Category)” in 2016. He was amongst the finalists in 16th Ernst & Young (EY) Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2014. Au Financiers was the was the only successful Asset NBFC out of 72 applicants to get the Small Finance Bank approval in 2015 and AU was the only Indian Asset Finance Company nominated and shortlisted for ‘Sustainable Finance Awards’ in London organized by IFC in 2011. 

Lending to priority sector is AU’s business model and was also one of the major reasons why it got the revered Small Finance Bank License. AU has touched over a million plus underbanked and unbanked customers in the last two decades. It operates in territories where the target segment for Financial Inclusion resides. It has 26% of Unbanked Rural Branches and around 60% of its branches are in Semi-Urban, Rural and Unbanked Rural Areas. AU in its essence serves the segment which has a big unmet demand for financial services & Mr. Sanjay Agarwal is working towards building the Financial Ecosystem and is contributing his bit to the Financial Inclusion in the country.

Arun, a Chartered Accountant, was earlier with Edelweiss where he was heading the SME Lending business of the group. Prior to Edelweiss, Arun held several key positions across Business Development and Risk Management with Citibank India. He has also worked at CRISIL early on in his career.