Todays & Tomorrows Thought Leaders of PMS AIF Industry

Bharat Shah
Executive Director, ASK Group

Mr. Bharat Shah, is an Executive Director at ASK Group and has been associated with them since 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Bombay and a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a member of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India. Having a 25 years of experience in the field of investment management, he has a considerable understanding of global businesses and stock picking is his forte. His investment philosophy emphasizes buying quality businesses enjoying superior growth but at reasonable valuations. In 2013, he authored a book entitled “Of Long-Term Value & Wealth Creation from Equity Investing: Observation, Ideas and Reflection”.

Raamdeo Agrawal
Chairman, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited

An awardee of Rashtriya Samman Patra by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, Raamdeo Agrawal is chairman of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited (MOFSL) and the driving force behind the company’s approach to investing. Mr. Agrawal has created the “QGLP” (Quality Growth Longevity & favorable Price) Investment Process and its ‘Buy Right, Sit Tight’ investing philosophy. Mr Agrawal is also the driving force behind the MOFSL Groups highly awarded research. He has been authoring the annual Motilal Oswal Wealth Creation Study since its inception in 1996. An Associate of Institute of Chartered Accountant of India and a member of the National Committee on Capital Markets of the Confederation of Indian Industry, he has also been featured on ‘Wizards of Dalal Street on CNBC TV 18.

Mr. Prashant Khemka, Founder & CIO – White Oak Capital Management

Prior to setting up White Oak Capital Management Consultants LLP in June 2017, an investment advisory firm in India, Mr. Prashant Khemka spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) from March 2007 to March 2017, and also for the Global Emerging Markets (GEM) Equity from June 2013 to March 2017. He won several accolades as the CIO and Lead PM of GS India Equity. He and his fund won several awards including AAA rating from Citywire and Elite rating from Fund caliber among others. In addition to his long-standing India investing experience, Prashant brings a unique perspective derived across developed and emerging market equities and has successfully managed US and global emerging markets funds for leading institutions, during the last two decades. 

Prashant graduated with honors from Mumbai University with a BE in Mechanical Engineering and earned an MBA in Finance from Vanderbilt University, where he received the Matt Wigginton Leadership Award for outstanding performance in Finance. He was awarded the CFA designation in 2001 and is a fellow of the Ananta Aspen Centre, India.

Hiren Ved
Co-founder and CIO – Alchemy Capital

Mr. Hiren Ved started his career by working with KR Choksey & Co, a sell-side firm known for its value investment approach, and eventually graduated to become the firm’s Head of Research. He brings over two decades of experience in bottom-up stock picking, managing portfolios, and managing a high-performance investment team capable of delivering consistent, superior alpha.

Andrew Holland
CEO – Avendus Capital Alternate Strategies

Prior to joining Avendus Capital Public Markets Alternate Strategies LLP, Andrew was the CEO of Ambit Investment Advisors where he built one of India’s largest and most successful Hedge Funds. He also was the Managing Director – Strategic Investment Group for Merrill Lynch in India.

He has worked with leading investment Banks, including County Nat West in UK, Barclays in UK and South Korea, Credit Suisse in Japan; with a total investment banking experience spanning 30 years. Throughout his career, Andrew has been recognised as a leader and a visionary in Institutional Equity Research and has been rated among the top 3 analysts consistently by independent surveys in UK and South Korea.

Shankar Sharma,

Head, Global Strategy Group @ First Global

Mr. Sharma has been called “The Alchemist of Dalal Street” by Forbes magazine. He has been widely quoted in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Financial Times, and has featured on shows like The Mind of The Market on NDTV Profit, in addition to being a guest on several shows on finance and markets on several channels in India and abroad.
Mr. Sharma heads the Global Strategy Group at First Global, a cell in charge of identifying key changes and inflection points in markets across the world, for its global clients.

Ms. Radhika Gupta,

CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management

Ms. Radhika Gupta, the CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management since 2017, is an investment professional with a range of diverse experiences across asset management – globally and in India. At Edelweiss, her efforts are concentrated in helping build brand Edelweiss AMC into a fast-growing, differentiated and innovative asset manager. The recent launch of Bharat Bond ETF in partnership with the Government of India, India’s first corporate bond ETF, is yet another step in that direction.

Ms. Radhika is a global citizen having grown up across four continents, a keen storyteller, Bridge player, and Twitter microblogger. Her YouTube video, “The Girl with a Broken Neck” which narrates her life journey has garnered more than 100K views in a short span of time. She has graduated from Management and Technology Program from the University of Pennsylvania, with joint degrees in Economics from the Wharton School in addition to Computer Science Engineering from the Moore School, and is the founding President of the Penn Alumni Club of Mumbai. She is a member of the AMFI board, chairing the Committee of Mutual Fund Distributors, and a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO). She was recently honored by Business Today magazine naming her amongst “The 30 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business.”

Nilesh Shah, Managing Director (MD) at Kotak Mutual Fund.

Nilesh has over 28 years of experience in capital markets, having managed funds across equity, fixed income and real estate for local and global investors. In his previous assignments, Nilesh has held leadership roles with Axis Capital, ICICI Prudential Asset Management, Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund and ICICI securities.  Nilesh is a Gold Medallist Chartered Accountant and a merit ranking cost accountant. He was part of the team that received the best fund house of the year award at Kotak Mutual Fund, Franklin Templeton and ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund.

Aashish P Somaiyaa,
CEO – White Oak Capital Management

At White Oak, Aashish Sommaiya is responsible for managing and growing its operations. Aashish is an experienced professional and has experience in scaling up and managing relations across well-known AMCs like Motilal Oswal AMC and ICICI Pru AMC.

Master in Finance and Bachelors in Science, brings two decades of industry experience. He was responsible for strategizing, growing, and managing the operations of Motilal Oswal AMC – a niche, focused, expert equity boutique based on its time tested BUY RIGHT: SIT TIGHT investing style. He has been responsible in the past for sales and distribution of one of India’s largest AMCs; ICICI Prudential AMC for their MF, PMS, and Real Estate offerings through multiple distribution channels across India and the Middle East. Led new product development, product management, communication, and distribution channel delivery over a number of years. Aashish is passionate about Investing, Reading, Sales, Marketing, Communication, Training, Teaching, Writing, and Public Speaking. He loves traveling to meet new people.

Samir Arora
Founder – Helios Capital

Samir Arora is the main founder & fund manager at Helios Capital. From 1998 to 2003, he was the Head of Asian Emerging Markets at Alliance Capital Management in Singapore (both fund management and research, covering 9 markets). From 1993 to August 2003, Samir was the Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Capital’s Indian mutual fund business and, along with managing Alliance Capital’s Asian Emerging Markets mandates, managed all of Alliance Capital’s India-dedicated equity funds.

In 1993, Samir relocated to Mumbai from New York as Alliance Capital’s first employee in India to help start its Indian mutual fund business. He also managed ACM India Liberalization Fund an India-dedicated offshore fund from its inception in 1993 till August 2003. Prior to 1993, he worked with Alliance Capital in New York as a research analyst.

At Alliance Capital, India-dedicated mutual funds managed by Samir received over 15 awards during his tenure, including AAA rating from Standard and Poor’s Micropal for four years in a row (1999 to 2003) for the India Liberalization Fund. In 2002, he was voted as the most astute equity investor in Singapore (rank: 1st) in a poll conducted by The Asset magazine. More recently Helios Strategic Fund has been nominated for the Best India Fund by Eurekehedge in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 & 2020 and has won the award four times. Helios Strategic Fund has also received the AsiaHedge Award 2018 for its long-term (five years) performance.

Samir Arora received his undergraduate degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in 1983 and his MBA (gold medalist) from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta in 1985. He also received a master’s degree in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and was a recipient of the Dean’s scholarship for distinguished merit while at Wharton.

He likes to read books (not on kindle though), watch movies and attend live sporting events. Samir has total investing experience of 29 years.

Samit Vartak
Founding Partner and CIO, SageOne Investment Managers

Samit Vartak, Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer of SageOne Investment Managers LLP

Samit has worked closely with various companies in the US and India, advising them on business strategy, profit optimization, growth and valuation. This experience forms the backbone that helps him better understand businesses and their fair value. He has been early in identifying and investing in multiple businesses across industries before they catch market attention. Samit actively shares his knowledge and learnings through widely followed investor newsletters, lectures at CFA society/industry forums/business schools and media interviews. Samit returned to India in 2006 after spending a decade in the USA working initially in corporate strategy with Gap Inc. and PwC Consulting, and then with Deloitte and Ernst & Young advising companies on business valuation and M&A. Samit is a CFA® charter holder, an MBA from Olin School of Business of the Washington University in St. Louis and holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree with Honors from Sardar Patel College of Engineering (SPCE), Mumbai University.

Amit Jeswani
Founder, Stallion Asset

Mr Amit Jeswani is a Double Charter, has successfully completed his Chartered Financial Analyst (Virginia, USA) and Chartered Market Technician (New York, USA). He graduated in Business with finance from Kingston University London. He has been investing in capital markets from last 14 years. He started at a tender age of 16 as his father was a Stock Broker and has worked with various financial giants. He is an active member with the Association of Technical Market Analyst and Indian Association of Investment Professionals.

Vikaas M Sachdeva
Chief Executive Officer, Emkay Investment Managers Ltd.

Vikaas is an industry veteran with over two decades of experience. In the course of his career, he has held several influential and senior management positions across marquee financial service organizations. He has a broad range of interests across functions like sales, distribution, marketing, Investment banking, product, and customer service.

Vikaas was the CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management Ltd, successfully turning around the business culminating in the acquisition of JP Morgan MF and was also the Global CEO of Enam Asset Management Ltd, where he oversaw both global and domestic side of the business. He has also worked with Birla Sun Life International AMC Ltd., and ING Investment Management (India) Ltd. His industry affiliations include a seat at the Mutual Fund Advisory Committee (MFAC), a special committee of industry professionals selected by SEBI to advise them on governing the MF industry and he was also on the board of the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI), heading the ETF and indexing committee, which submitted the first white paper on ETFs to SEBI.

Mr. Nalin Moniz had Co-Founded, Forefront Capital Management, and has worked as a Portfolio Manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (New York, USA).

He has 8 years of India investment track record on the PMS, AIF, and FII platform covering fundamental equities, event arbitrage, and commodities. He brings global research and investment management experience at one of the world’s largest hedge funds in equities, bonds and credit.

Graduated magna cum laude from Management & Technology Program at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. Economics (Wharton School) and B.S.E in Computer Engineering (Moore School of Engineering).

Vikas Khemani, CA, CFA, CS
Founder – Carnelian Asset Advisors

Vikas has ~23 years of capital markets experience, most recently as the CEO of Edelweiss Securities Ltd, where he spent 17 years incubating & building several businesses to leadership position including Institutional Equities and Equity Research.

With a strong business acumen & deep understanding of the Capital Markets, he enjoys strong relationships with Corporate India and is associated with several Industry bodies & committees including the CII National Council on Corporate Governance, FICCI Capital Markets Committee, Executive Council of Bombay Management Association.

He is also a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO), a global forum for entrepreneurs and CEOs and was awarded Young Professional Achievers Award for the service sector by the ICAI in 2014.

Varun Goel manages Equity PMS and Equity AIF products as a Fund Manager and works with Nippon India. He is a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering, and MBA in Finance and Marketing from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He has worked with Kotak Portfolio Management Team and was a part of the buy side analysts team actively tracking around 60 companies forming part of the BSE 500 Universe. During this role, he performed, in depth analysis of over 100 companies across sectors by interaction with top management and also analyzed company financials including balance sheet, profit & loss and cash flow statements. Achieved a success/ strike rate of 80% of recommendations worked; enabling the fund manager to outperform benchmark on three, six and twelve month basis.

Anshul Saigal, Chief Investment Officer, Kotak Portfolio Management Services

MBA in Finance, Bachelor in Engineering and brings Financial Markets experience of 2 decades. He manages the Portfolio Management Services business at Kotak AMC. He has strong grounding in Graham/ Buffet styles of Investing, hence his portfolios are managed in a disciplined manner under the Value Investment philosophy. Portfolios seek to identify Special Situations and Value Opportunities to take advantage of mis-priced market instruments. Areas of focus are corporate restructurings, price-arb opportunities, under-researched pockets and companies with competitive moats (preferably having temporary performance concerns). Passionate about the markets and endeavours to constantly learn through writings of capital market doyens like Ben Graham, Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, George Soros with a particular interest in behavioural finance.

Shahzad Madon, Head, Alternate Assets, Nippon Asset Management

Shahzad is a Commerce graduate and an MMS from University of Mumbai. He has more than 30 years of industry experience across banking, investment management & the financial services sector. He has held varied responsibilities, which include heading equity research, managing equity portfolios, heading the equities business, managing alternative assets and leading the PMS & AIF business.

He has been actively involved in the conceptualization, fund raising activities and fund management of equity/capital markets products.

Saurabh Mukherjea, CFA
Founder & CIO, Marcellus

Mr. Saurabh Mukherjea is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Marcellus Investment Managers which was incorporated in Aug 2018 and the firm’s application to conduct Portfolio Management Services was approved by SEBI in Oct 2018. He is the former CEO of Ambit Capital and played a key role in Ambit’s rise as a broker and a wealth manager. When Saurabh left Ambit in June 2018, assets under advisory were $800mn.

Navin Agarwal
CEO – Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company

Mr. Navin Agarwal is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Motilal Oswal Asset Management Company Limited (MOAMC). Prior to joining MOAMC, he was Managing Director of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited. He started his career as an Analyst in 1994, went on to be Head of Research and managed Portfolios till 2000.

He joined Motilal Oswal Group in 2000 and has been responsible for building as well as running various businesses over the last two decades. He is a part of the Executive Board that drives business strategy and reviews for all businesses besides capital allocation of the group.

HMr. Navin Agarwal is affiliated with prestigious organizations like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Institute of Cost and Works Accountant of India, Institute of Company Secretaries of India and CFA Institute, Virginia. He has co-authored a book on stock markets “India`s Money Monarchs”.

Madanagopal Ramu
Head – Equity and Fund Manager,
Sundaram Alternates

Mr. Madanagopal Ramu is the Fund Manager for PMS and Alternative Investment Funds Category III with around 14 years of experience in the Indian Financial Markets. He currently manages an AUM of Rs.1,835 crores and has over 4 years of experience in managing funds. He joined Sundaram Mutual fund in 2010 as a Research Analyst from Centrum Broking and has made rapid progress during his tenure in Sundaram AMC. He became Head of Research in April 2015 and started actively managing funds from January 2016. Madan comes with strong academic qualifications. He is a qualified Cost Accountant and has a Management degree from BIM Trichy.

Raman Nagpal
Inventor and CIO – AccuraCap

Eminent Computer Scientist, Social Entrepreneur and Corporate Executive. Raman holds a Bachelor in Computer Science from Delhi and a Masters in Computer Science from BITS Pilani, is an MBA and a CFA. He is also a certified Corporate Director from Insead Business School. He was on board of Adobe India and Mopria Global Alliance. He has over 20 years of experience of running global businesses – large enterprise as well as his own startups. Was running a $200M technology business for Adobe before deciding to pursue Accuracap fulltime.

Aniruddha Sarkar
Senior Portfolio Manager & Co-Head Equities

Aniruddha has over 13 years’ experience in the Indian equity markets managing investors’ money. He has recently joined Quest Investment Advisors as a partner and managing their equity strategies. Prior to Quest, he was associated with IIFL for 11.5 years. At IIFL AMC he had launched the IIFL Multicap PMS which he managed for 5 years before leaving in Jan 2020. He has been instrumental in generating significant alpha and outperformance for his clients over the years. He has a keen eye for identifying trends in the market early on and believes alpha creation comes from being ahead of the curve in identifying the trends in the economy and market. He mixes both top-down and bottom-up approaches in his portfolio creation.

Devendra Phadke, Portfolio Manager – Purnartha

Devendra, a Chartered Accountant, has over 18 years of experience in working with Morgan Stanley, Thomas Weisel International and Multi-Act Asset Management. He is a proficient analyst with an expertise in buy-side equity research spanning emerging and developed markets.
As Purnartha’s Portfolio Manager, he acts as the customer-facing flank of research. His ability to blend the top down macro view with a bottom up research approach ensures that the client understands the investment rationale and the investment strategy is lucidly communicated to the client.

Rakshit Ranjan, CFA, Portfolio Manager – Marcellus

Mr. Ranjan spent 6 years (2005-2011) covering UK equities with Lloyds Bank (Director, Institutional Equity Research) and Execution Noble (Sector Lead analyst). During these six years, he was ranked amongst the top-3 UK Insurance analysts (Thomson Reuters Extel survey) in the mid-cap space. Since 2011, Rakshit led Ambit Capital’s consumer research franchise which got voted as No.1 for Discretionary Consumer and within top-3 for Consumer Staples in 2015 and 2016. He launched Ambit’s Coffee Can PMS in Mar’17 and managed it till Dec’18. Under his management, Ambit’s Coffee Can PMS was one of India’s top-performing equity products during 2018.

Manish Jain, Fund Manager – Ambit Investment Advisors

Manish is the Fund Manager of Coffee Can PMS at Ambit Asset Management. He has over 15 years of experience in equity research. Before moving to Ambit Asset Management, he worked with Nomura for a decade as a Lead Analyst covering FMCG, electrical durable and retail.
Prior to Nomura, Manish worked with Lehman Brothers, Enam Securities, ICICI Securities, and Motilal Oswal in the equity research space. He has consistently been voted as the best performing analyst in the research team for the past four years by ADIA, Capital World; Capital International for strong corporate access amongst others.
Manish is a Chartered Financial Analyst (USA) and holds an MBA in Finance from Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development, Pune.

Siddhartha Rastogi, Managing Director – Ambit Investment Advisors

Siddhartha has been with Ambit for over 8 Years. Before joining Ambit, Siddhartha cofounded IIFL Private wealth and set up the mutual fund and structured product distribution business IIFL. Prior to that, Siddhartha worked for HSBC Bank as Branch Head for the Peddar Road Branch, which is the largest Wealth Branch in India. Siddhartha has also worked for CitiBank and UTI Bank in wealth management and corporate banking roles. He is an Honors Graduate in Commerce from Delhi University, Company Secretary (Intermediate) and has a PGDM from NMIMS, Mumbai

Trideep Bhattacharya
Senior Portfolio Manager, Brand Equity

Trideep has over 20 years of experience in equities and portfolio management in India and other Asian Emerging Markets as well as developed equity markets. Before joining Axis AMC, he spent a significant time as a portfolio manager at State Street Global Advisors, and with UBS Global Asset Management in London. He has been a well-established stock-picker and sellside analyst in various investor surveys like Institutional Investor and Asia Money.

Maneesh Thakur – Senior Vice President, Sales – Axis AMC

Maneesh has more than 19 years of experience in the mutual fund industry. He is currently responsible for Retail Sales across the country and is also responsible for channel sales in Axis Bank and IFAs. He has worked with Mirae Asset Global Investments, Principal Asset Management Co. and Sun F&C AMC. He has done his B.E. in Electronics from Mumbai University and Masters in Marketing Management from Mumbai University.

Mitul Patel
Head – PMS Investments, HDFC AMC

Mitul has an overall experience of 14 years across areas of research, fund management, private equity advisory and investment banking. Prior to joining HDFC AMC, he was managing the strategies of Portfolio Management Services offered by IIFL AMC. He also headed the research for listed equities and is responsible for generating investment ideas across sectors and market capitalizations. He has been instrumental in setting up the research desk at IIFL AMC and also directly tracked companies in the chemicals, auto and pharma sectors.

Ms. Shashi Singh,
Chief Business Officer, Singularity Holdings (MadhuKela Family Office)

Prior to joining Singularity holdings, Shashi spearheaded the sales strategy and business development initiatives at IIFL AMC. She has over 23 years of experience in the financial services industry across asset management and international business. She has worked across business development, channel partner engagement, distribution models, international business and sales strategy functions maintaining distributor relationships.

Rajesh Kothari
Founder & MD, AlfAccurate

Mr. Rajesh Kothari, Founder and Managing Director of AlfAccurate Advisors, is the visionary behind the customer-driven and excellence based approach. A CWA and an MBA by qualification, he has a rich experience of more than 20 years in the Indian Capital Markets and has handled several investment projects in premier investment institutions.

During his tenure as a Fund Manager at DSP Merrill Lynch Fund Managers (now DSP BlackRock Investment Managers), the equity assets under management flourished from USD 100mn to USD 1.5bn. All through this period of five years, the equity schemes often ranked in its 1st ‘Quartile Ranking’ by CRISIL, a Standard & Poor’s affiliate. This is a testimony to Mr. Kothari’s financial acumen and vast knowledge of investments. He is the recipient of several awards for delivering superior and consistent risk-adjusted returns.

During his tenure as Director of Voyager Investment Advisors, a USA based India dedicated fund, the fund outperformed the benchmark indices significantly. Not surprisingly, CNBC, CRISIL, MyIris and others recognized his performance and awarded him for delivering unrivaled risk-adjusted returns. Economic Times also recognized his performance and awarded him as a ‘Platinum Fund Manager’. Additionally, he won the CRISIL Mutual Fund of the Year Award in 2006 for DSP Merrill Lynch Equity Fund. During his tenure, the fund house also received the Lipper India Fund award for the Best Equity Fund Group for three years. Moreover, he has also been a keynote speaker at several international conferences/summits like Maharashtra Economic Summit, Institute of Directors, TradeTech Asia conference and The World Council for Corporate Governance.

He is also actively involved with ‘Arham Yuva Seva Group’ – a philanthropic initiative with several significant programmes for a better world for the youth.

Harsh is a specialist in equity hedge fund strategies. He joined Tata Asset Management in November 2018 as Head of Alternative Strategies. Started the alternatives business with launch of Tata Absolute Return Fund in April 2019. Through Tata Absolute Return Fund, Harsh introduced the Equity market neutral investing strategy to the investor community. His prior stint includes working as Portfolio Manager – Equity long/short strategy at Reliance Securities where he managed equity long/short portfolio and generated consistent high returns. Harsh received his training in equity investments and hedging strategies while working for Deutsche bank’s trading desk and Roc Capital Management USA. He is an MBA (Finance) from Symbiosis, Pune and also done courses in Certified Portfolio Manager and Certified Treasury Manager from The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University.

Nagaraj Meda is a postgraduate in economics from University of Hyderabad (central university) and is the Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of TransGraph Consulting. About 18 years of experience in areas of price forecasting, trading, sourcing and risk management and is providing the services to leading manufacturing, commodity trading, FMCG and metal companies of the world. He has hands on experience in the commodity futures markets as a portfolio manager in a commodity hedge fund initially and as a consultant presently. He is well recognized as an authority in the field of forecasting using technical analysis and has carved a new concept, “Mapping the market thought” to forecast the prices. He has presented 100+ papers at various international level conferences related to price forecasting, procurement and risk management.

Mr Govind Agrawal, Director of AlfAccurate Advisors is an FCA and a graduate in Law. He has over two decades of experience in the Indian Capital Markets. Prior to joining AAA, he has held key positions with several reputed organizations such as Reliance Capital Asset Management, UBS Securities, Motilal Oswal Securities.

His four-year stint at Reliance Capital Asset Management Company (USD 20bn) as the Fund Manager saw the Reliance Emergent India Fund (USD 100m off-shore fund) outperform benchmark indices by 35 percent since its inception. Furthermore, he played an instrumental role in setting up the ‘Macro Economic Desk’ at Reliance AMC. Before this, Mr. Agrawal has worked with UBS Securities India Pvt. Ltd as an Executive Director where he spearheaded India accounts for large FIIs. Mr. Agrawal’s decade as a Senior Vice President at Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd helped him specialize in advising major institutional domestic and foreign investors on sectoral allocation and stock selection.

He has represented Reliance AMC on international platforms and panel discussion on Emerging Markets and Indian Equity Market. Mr. Agrawal addressed various investors’ meet and the private banking teams of large banks in the Middle East, Asia, London, Europe, and India.

A leader by example, Mr. Agrawal has won many accolades for consistently contributing to Institutional Equity Sales at Motilal Oswal. He was also voted ‘Best Equity Sales Person – Mega Funds category’ by Asia Money in 2006.

Harit Oberoi, Associate Director- A.K. Wealth Management Pvt. Ltd.

Harit is a Senior Executive having more than 18 years of experience in the financial services industry with specific focus on investment advisory across Equity & Debt products. He has garnered extensive exposure across a gamut of areas including leadership, business strategy & development, product management including development, system & process development and operations. He has been accredited with setting up the distribution Model in AK Capital and E-broking in MOSL. I has gained competence in setting up new verticals, driving strategic planning & execution of new business models and scaling them into sustainable & profitable businesses. He has demonstrated excellence in building the channel network and managing the same effectively. He is also adept in handling diverse stakeholders including senior leadership, internal teams, cross-functional resources, key accounts, investors & promoters & statutory bodies along with managing customers including B2B & B2C relationships.

Sunil Singhania
Founder – Abakkus Asset Management

Sunil Singhania, CFA, is the Founder of Abakkus Asset Management, LLP, an India-focused Asset Management Company he established in 2018. Prior to this, in his role as Global Head – Equities at Reliance Capital Ltd., he oversaw equity assets and provided strategic inputs across Reliance Capital Group of companies including asset management, insurance, AIF and offshore assets. And as CIO – Equities, Singhania led Reliance Mutual Fund (now Nippon India Mutual Fund), equity schemes to be rated amongst the best. Reliance Growth Fund (now Nippon India Growth Fund) grew over 100 times in less than 22 years under Singhania’s leadership. Furthermore, he led Reliance Asset Management (now Nippon Life Asset Management) Ltd.’s international efforts and was instrumental in launching India funds in Japan, South Korea, and the UK, besides managing mandates from institutional investors based in the US, Singapore, and other countries.

Singhania was the Promoter of The Association of NSE Members of India; a body of stock brokers. He is also the first individual from India to be elected as a member of the CFA Institute Board of Governors and currently serves as the Chair of the Investment Committee and as a member of the Nominating Committee. He also sat on CFA Institute’s Standards of Practice Council for six years, and was the Founder of the Indian Association of Investment Professionals (now CFA Society India) and served as its President for eight years.

Singhania graduated in commerce from the Bombay University and completed his Chartered Accountancy from the ICAI, Delhi with an all India rank. He has also earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, conferred by CFA Institute. Having traveled extensively across the world, Singhania has also attended many global investment conferences and seminars.

Charandeep Singh
Founder & Fund Manager, Girik Capital

Mr. Charandeep Singh is the Founder & Fund Manager of Girik Capital. He currently jointly leads the investment decision making process at Girik. He has over two decades of experience in capital markets. Charandeep’s experience includes more than 10 years of investing in India, prior to which he was with Lehman Brothers as a Director in the investment banking division, global leveraged finance group, based in New York and London.

He holds a Diploma in Accounting & Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1999) and is a Master in Finance from London Business School (2002).

Mehul Jani
Senior Executive VP & Fund Manager- Listed Equity, IIFL Asset Management

Mr. Mehul Jani is the Senior Executive VP & Fund Manager- Listed Equity at IIFL Asset Management. Prior to joining IIFL, Mr. Jani worked at DSP Blackrock where he was a Fund manager and Analyst. Mehul joined DSP BlackRock in October 2008, as an Analyst in the Equities team. From 2004 to 2008, he was employed at Morgan Stanley Plc, London as an Associate working with structured product valuations and fund derivatives. He is a CFA charter holder and holds an MSc. in Banking and International Finance.

Anirudhha Sarkar
CIO & Portfolio Manager, Quest Investment Advisors

Mr. Aniruddha Sarkar is the CIO & Portfolio Manager at Quest Investment Advisors. He has over 13 years of experience in the Indian equity markets managing investors’ money. Prior to Quest, he was associated with IIFL for 11.5 years. At IIFL AMC, he had launched the IIFL Multicap PMS which he managed for 5 years before leaving in Jan 2020. He has been instrumental in generating significant alpha and outperformance for his clients over the years. He has a keen eye for identifying trends in the market early on and believes alpha creation comes from being ahead of the curve in identifying the trends in the economy and market. He mixes both top-down and bottom-up approaches in his portfolio creation.

Prateek Agrawal
Business Head & CIO, ASK Investment Managers Ltd.

Mr. Prateek Agrawal is the Business Head & CIO of ASK Investment Managers Ltd. He works closely with clients and channel partners and provides strategic direction to fund managers and research teams. He holds over 27 years of experience in capital markets with a long distinguished sell side research, investment banking and advisory experience which has been a great asset on the buyside. Prior to ASK Group, he was associated with SBI Capital Markets as Head of Research and headed equities at ABN Amro and Bharti Axa AMCs. He was part of the team involved with the privatisation of VSNL and handled Hindustan Zinc for Vedanta Group.

Nimesh Mehta
Director & Country Head- Sales & Products, ASK Investment Managers

Mr. Nimesh Mehta has more than 21 years of experience in industries ranging from NBFC, Equities, Asset Management & Financial Services. He is an author of an International Bestseller book on Amazon titled “Sales Booster.”

Amit Mantri
Co-Founder, 2Point2 Capital

Mr. Amit Mantri is the Co-Founder of 2Point2 Capital, a SEBI-registered Portfolio Manager. 2Point2 Capital was started in 2016 and currently manages more than 650 crs in assets. Amit has over 11 years of investing experience across private equity and public markets. Previously, he was a Vice-President at Hornbill Capital, a Mumbai based long-short hedge fund. Amit has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Bangalore and a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur. He is also a CFA® charter holder.

Abhishek Agarwal is Bachelor’s in Commerce with majors in accounts from H.R. College in 2006 and MSc. Finance from Lancaster University Management School, the United Kingdom in 2007. In addition, he has pursued short-term courses from IIM- Ahmedabad, and ISB – Hyderabad.

Abhishek Agarwal has a proven track record of successfully investing in both Startups and Listed Equities space and has combined experience of 12+ years in the Indian Financial Market and Start-up Ecosystem.

Bhautik Ambani
MD, Avendus

Bhautik has joined Avendus Capital Public Markets Alternate Strategies LLP from December 2016.

Prior to joining Avendus, Bhautik was the Director of Ambit Investment Advisors where he was responsible for the marketing of the Ambit Alpha Fund, which was one of the largest hedge funds in India. Has spent the last 13 years in the asset management and wealth management industry in India. Before Ambit, he worked with Pramerica Mutual Fund, Mirae Asset Mutual Fund and Kotak Wealth Management. He is a MBA in Finance from SP Jain Institute of Management.

Ravi Dharamshi
Founder & CIO, ValueQuest Investment Advisors

Mr. Ravi Dharamshi is the Founder & CIO of ValueQuest Investment Advisors. He has an MBA in Finance from McCallum Business School, US. He returned from the US after a brief internship stint at Salomon Smith Barney. He has been associated with the Indian stock markets for over 21 years. After graduating, he worked his way up through the stock market business, spending four years at RARE Enterprises under the aegis of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Utpal Sheth, where he was involved with in-depth research and private equity deals.

With an enviable track record in stock picking and his ability to take bold calls, he has been instrumental in generating outsized investment returns. Ravi is the founder & leads the overall Investment Strategy at ValueQuest. ValueQuest has been ranked as one of the best performers over in PMS AIF World 10+ year category.

Manish Sonthalia
Executive Director and CIO – Alternates and Offshore, Motilal Oswal AMC

Mr. Manish Sonthalia serves as the Executive Director & CIO – Alternates and Offshore at Motilal Oswal Asset Management. He has over 22 years of experience across equity fund management and research covering Indian markets, with over 11 years with Motilal Oswal. He founded the Wide Angle Financial Services Ltd in 1995. After which he served as the CEO of United Credit Securities Ltd from 2000-2002. Before joining Motilal Oswal, he served as a Vice President at SKP Securities Ltd and Wealth Management Advisory Services Ltd till 2004.

Naveen Chandramohan
Founder & Fund Manager, ITUS Capital

Mr. Naveen Chandramohan is the Founder and Principal Fund Manager at ITUS Capital. Naveen is responsible for running the fund and takes all the portfolio and risk decisions at ITUS. Mr. Chandramohan has had illustrious career spanning 15 years in the financial services sector having worked across fund management, fund raising and fundamental research. He began his Financial Services career with Lehman Brothers in Tokyo, as a Senior Analyst in the Capital Markets Trading desk.

Rahul Rathi
Chairman & Fund Manager, Purnartha Investment Advisers

Rahul Rathi is the Chairman and Fund Manager at Purnartha Investment Advisers (Purnartha) Private Limited. He has over 20 years of investment and risk management experience gained from working with global financial institutions in New York, London and Asia.

For over 10 years, Rahul has designed and driven the Purnartha Investment philosophy of long-term wealth generation and has an audited, stellar performance track record. This sustained performance is largely attributed to Rahul’s experience and investment in people, processes and data which he has built from ground up.

He serves on the board of directors at Onward Technologies Limited and Plastiblends India Limited. He has equity ownership in Capital Metrics and Risk Solutions and is also a partner in Beharay Rathi Group of companies. Rahul is an active contributor in society and is a trustee on Pune Blind Men’s Associations H.V Desai Eye Hospital and Laxminarayan Devasthan trusts. He is an academic expert on Kaveri group of Institute’s College. Rahul has a Master’s in Industrial Administration from the Carnegie Mellon University and BE in Polymer Engineering from the University of Pune

Karthik Kumar
Portfolio Manager, Axis AMC

Karthik has over 10 years of experience in building and managing Quantitative strategies for India and or the Asia Pacific region. Prior to joining Axis AMC, he was based out of Hong Kong and served as a Portfolio Manager at SilverTree and Asiya Investments. While at Asiya Investments, he helped manage USD 750 million across long-only and long-short strategies for clients including Sovereign Wealth Funds.

He is an MBA from Purdue University, USA; B.E. in Mechanical Engineering and a CFA Charter holder.

Kenneth Andrade
Founder & CIO – Old Bridge Capital Management

Kenneth Andrade is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Old Bridge Capital Management. He manages the investment process and leads investment ideation for inclusion of stocks within the investment portfolio at Old Bridge. Kenneth has over 30 years of experience in Indian Capital Markets in portfolio management and investment research.

Prior to founding Old Bridge Capital Management in December 2015, Kenneth was Chief Investment Officer at IDFC Asset Management, where he was responsible for building the firm’s equity franchise and managed one of India’s largest equity funds by AUM. He overlooked a corpus of US$ 8 billion.

Sachin Shah
Fund Manager, Emkay Investment Managers Ltd.

Sachin is a seasoned fund manager with over two decades of experience in the Indian equity markets. By virtue of his extensive research, Sachin realised early-on the need for a framework in which companies with evasively tricky standing needed to be filtered out very objectively, leading to the development of E-Qual Risk, EIML’s proprietary module which helps us to evaluate and compare listed companies on various aspects of governance. Sachin shares his knowledge and insights through various media interactions across print and digital platforms.

Ashish Shanker
Deputy Managing Director – Motilal Oswal Private Wealth Management(MOPWM)

Ashish Shanker is Deputy Managing Director at Motilal Oswal Private Wealth Management(MOPWM) encompassing Family Office Mandates, Product & Research, Financial Planning and Investment Strategy. He has been associated with MOPWM for over eight years and is instrumental in evolving the proprietary 4C framework for selecting equity and fixed income managers in India. He is the author of the monthly research publication “Alpha Strategist”. As an official spokesperson, he appears regularly on leading business media channels to give his views on markets and investments. He has also authored several articles on investments, capital markets and economic outlook in several leading dailies and financial publications.

Ashish is a Management Graduate from the University of Bangalore and has completed the Senior Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. In his stint with Standard Chartered Private Bank as Head of Investments and as Senior Director at Sarasin Alpen, India he has won many accolades in these organizations. His over decade long experience prior to joining MOPWM in various domains of financial planning, products & advisory and wealth management has bestowed upon him a strong understanding of subject matter and research acumen.

Anup Maheshwari
Chief Investment Officer and Joint – Chief Executive Officer, IIFL Asset Management

Anup Maheshwari is the Chief Investment Officer and Joint – Chief Executive Officer of IIFL Asset Management. Anup is responsible for the investment and strategy for IIFL AMC’s business including mutual funds and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). He plays a key role in meeting the company’s aggressive growth goals as well as product development and devising an innovative investment strategy.

An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, he has over 25 years of work experience in the financial services sector. Prior to joining IIFL Asset Management Limited, he has been associated with DSP Investment Managers Private Limited (formerly known as DSP BlackRock Investment Managers Private Limited) for over 21 years as an Executive Vice President & Chief Investment Officer. He was also associated with HSBC Asset Management (India) Private Limited & Merrill Lynch India Equities Fund (Mauritius) Limited.

Anup was the chief investment officer at HSBC Asset Management between December 2005 and May 2006 before returning to DSP Investment Managers. Prior to joining DSP Investment Managers, he had worked for Chescor, a British fund management firm that used to run three offshore funds investing in Indian equities.

Debojyoti Ghosh
Fund Manager, Axis AMC

Mr. Debojyoti has more than 13 years of experience in private equity investments in India. He has full cycle deal experience driving key decision-making around investments, exits and portfolio management strategy.

Prior to joining Axis AMC, he was heading the India investments of BCP (Baer Capital). He performed complete fund management role in BCP including sourcing, evaluation, negotiation, portfolio management and exits focusing on early-stage investments. Prior to that, he was part of the Standard Chartered Private Equity team in India focusing on growth capital investments. He completed multiple investments and exits in different sectors including consumer, manufacturing, media, construction, services etc. In his current role he is primarily responsible for growing the unlisted investments platform at Axis Asset Management focusing on high-growth opportunities.

He is an MBA from IIM Calcutta and B.E. in Information Technology from Jadavpur University.

Anand Sharma
Portfolio Manager – PMS, ICICI Prudential AMC

Anand joined IPAMC in April 2014. In his current role, Anand is a portfolio manager for two of IPAMC’s PMS Strategies – ICICI Prudential PMS Flexicap Strategy and ICICI Prudential PMS Wellness Strategy. He has also covered Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Metals, Mining, Sugar and Textiles space as a Research Analyst.

He has a total work experience of over 7 years. Prior to joining IPAMC, he was associated with Oracle Financial Services Software Limited. He has completed his Masters in Management Studies (MMS) in Finance from K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research, Mumbai and B.E. (Computers) from Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai.

Karan Bhagat
Founder, MD & CEO – IIFL Wealth

Karan Bhagat is the Founder, Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer of IIFL Wealth & Asset Management. Karan joined IIFL Holdings Ltd. (formerly India Infoline) to set up IIFL Wealth & Asset Management in 2008.

Karan has more than two decades of experience in the financial services industry. He is responsible for providing direction and leadership towards the achievement of the organization’s philosophy, mission, vision and its strategic goals and objectives. He has built a team of experienced and talented professionals, who manage some of the most distinguished families in India & abroad.

Under his able leadership, IIFL Wealth & Asset Management has grown from its humble beginnings to one of the leading wealth management companies in India managing more than USD25 billion in client assets.

He featured in Fortune India’s ‘40 under 40’ list in 2016 and 2017 and The Economic Times ‘40 under Forty’ list in 2017. He has received the URS Asia One Global Indian of the Year award in 2018. Karan holds an MBA in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and acquired his bachelor’s degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Balaji Rao
Managing Partner – Real Estate, Axis AMC

Balaji Rao is the Managing Partner – Real Estate at Axis AMC. He has joined the company in February 2018 and is responsible for driving the Alternatives Business.

He is a veteran of the real estate industry in India, having over 25 years of in-depth knowledge of the property markets in the country.

Over his career spanning nearly 3 decades, Balaji has undertaken various functional roles and assumed leadership in business development, acquisitions, project execution, funding (both equity and debt) and divestments. Over his career spanning nearly 3 decades, Balaji has worked with several marquee real estate investors including Starwood Capital, Sun Ares, TCG Real Estate, Standard Chartered Bank amongst others.

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

Vaibhav Sanghavi
Co-CEO & Portfolio Manager, Avendus Capital Alternate Strategies

Vaibhav Sanghavi has over 17 years of experience in managing funds across leading financial institutions. He joined Avendus in December 2016 as Co-CEO of Avendus Capital Public Markets Alternate Strategies LLP.

Prior to Avendus, he was part of Ambit Investment Advisors. Ltd from October 2008 to September 2016. His fund management experience prior to Ambit, was with DSP Merrill Lynch from October 2005 to September 2008, where he was instrumental in building the Proprietary Trading team, managing and advising over USD $1 bn of capital. He has also worked with HDFC Bank, as part of treasury, managing proprietary investments in equities – from 2001 to 2005,  with a larger focus on Long/Short.

Dinshaw Irani
Chief Investment Officer, Helios India

Dinshaw Irani is the Chief Investment Officer of Helios India. Prior to this, he was Executive Director at Artemis Advisors (exclusive research advisors to Helios Singapore) for over 14 years. As the head of Artemis Advisors, Dinshaw led the research process, from industry outlook and idea generation to final recommendation. Prior to joining Artemis in 2005, he was the Principal Portfolio Manager at Sharekhan during 2003-04, setting up their portfolio management services division. Prior to his stint at Sharekhan, Dinshaw was Vice President in the Asian Emerging Markets team for Alliance Capital in Mumbai for over 3 years covering the consumer and pharmaceutical sectors. Before Alliance, Dinshaw has worked at Sun F&C Mutual Fund and at Lloyd Securities. Dinshaw enjoys traveling to new places where he can spend time outdoors on hiking trails and in nature parks. Dinshaw is a graduate in Commerce (Hons.) and holds a post-graduate diploma in Rural Management from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. Dinshaw has total investing experience of 28 years.

Rajesh Bhatia,
Managing Director & CIO,
ITI Long Short Equity Fund

–      30+ years of investment experience in Indian equities;  Last 14 years in Alternative Investments (Long-Short fund management)

–      Last assignment: CIO, Simto Investments, a subsidiary of Tata Investments; proprietary book

–      Co-founder & CIO, Heritage India Advisors, Indian advisor to New York based, Heritage Capital, an India long-short equity fund; The Heritage Fund was nominated as among the Top 5 funds in India for its performance in 2010, by Eureka Hedge, an independent international data provider and alternate research firm

–      Senior VP & Head, Portfolio Management Services (PMS), Reliance Capital Asset Management; started the business unit for the firm in 2004

–      Other Assignments : Corporate Database, SBC Warburg and IL&FS Private Equity

–      Education : Commerce graduate, H.R. College of Commerce & Economics; ACMA (cost and management accounting); Completed the CFA program conducted by CFA Institute, USA.

Dhiraj Sachdev,

Managing Partner CIO,

Roha Asset Managers LLP

Ranked among India’s best fund managers by Outlook Business; Value Research in 2017, Dhiraj Sachdev was a Senior Fund Manager at HSBC Global Asset Management. Prior equity fund management, experience include ASK Investments and HDFC Bank. A leader who leads by example, his 23 years long industry experience saw glory when he delivered long term performance of 29% CAGR for 6 years for HSBC Mid & Small Cap Fund. Dhiraj holds a degree in Commerce (B.com) from Mumbai University, is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA) from ICAI and a Cost & Management Accountant (CMA) from ICMAI Institute along-with Diploma in Foreign Trade Management (DFTM) from Mumbai University. Currently he manages AIF and PMS Funds at Roha Asset Managers with a strong track record.