Aakash Desai
Head- Private Credit, IIFL AMC

Mr. Aakash Desai is Head of Private Credit at IIFL AMC. He has a rich experience of about two decades of diverse experience in Institutional Financial services and specializes in the areas of Corporate and Structured Finance, Syndication & Capital Markets and Treasury. Prior to IIFL AMC, he was associated with Clix Capital in the capacity of Head – Corporate and Structured Finance business. Prior to Clix, Aakash has been part of Standard Chartered Bank, ICICI Bank India and UK in various leadership roles. He is an alumnus of NMIMS, Mumbai.

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 – 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.

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.

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.

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.

Anunaya Kumar
Senior Executive Vice President- National Sales Head, IIFL Asset Management

Anunaya Kumar is Senior Executive Vice President & National Sales Head at IIFL Wealth & Asset Management. In this role, his focus is to build a profitable retail franchise and ensure that IIFL AMC becomes the foremost choice for investors and distributors across asset categories. During his professional journey of more than 2 decades, he has held several Senior Leadership Positions with banks and asset management companies and has managed relationships across B2B and B2C verticals. He has successfully managed the corporate banking, retail banking and wealth management profiles for banks before joining asset management companies and heading their Strategies and Sales vertical.

Prior to joining IIFL Wealth, he was associated with Invesco Mutual Fund as Director and Head of Sales. During his professional journey, he has also worked with DSP Blackrock Investment Managers, Royal Bank of Scotland (erstwhile ABN Amro Bank), Citibank N.A. and IDBI Bank Ltd. He is an MBA in Finance and is a Commerce Graduate from Punjab University.

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.

Prateek Pant
Chief Business Officer, WhiteOak Capital Management

Mr. Prateek Pant is the Chief Business Officer at WhiteOak Capital Management. He is responsible for driving the overall business  objectives through multiple distribution channels,  innovative marketing strategies including digital and  effective product architecture. He over 25 years of experience in Banking and Financial Services in India and the Middle East. Prior to WhiteOak, Prateek was the Head of Products  and Solutions at Sanctum Wealth Management and was  also a part of the Founding Management Team. Prateek holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, and an MMS degree from JBIMS, Mumbai, with a specialisation in Finance.

Shekhar Daga
Head- Private Capital at ICICI Prudential AMC

Mr. Shekhar Daga is the Head- Private Capital at ICICI Prudential AMC. In a career spanning over two decades, Shekhar has handled entire gamut of  investment management across corporate lending, structured finance, private equity, special situation and distressed debt.

Previously, he was a partner at AION Capital and served on the board of multiple portfolio companies including Clix Capital. He was earlier with ICICI Bank in their Structured finance and distressed debt group. Shekhar is a rank holder CA from Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Kunal Pawaskar

Principal Officer & Head – Portfolio Management Services

Mr. Kunal Pawaskar joined Tata Asset Management in September 2021, as Principal Officer & Head – Portfolio Management Services. He joined Tata Asset Management from Indgrowth Capital Advisors, a mid cap and small cap equities focused Category III AIF. He brings with him an astute insight into businesses and understanding management. He also keenly studies business and market cycles, and is focused on using this knowledge productively in the investment process. Kunal is a post-graduate in management studies from IIM Indore. Over the past decade and a half he has worked with leading organizations including Indgrowth Capital Advisors, Avista Advisory (during their partnership with Houlihan Lokey), IIFL and SBI Capital Markets. He has worked across investment management and investment banking (private and public markets respectively). During his stints in Avista Advisory and IIFL, he has worked with corporates on areas including strategic investments for growth, capital raising and divestitures. In the past he had set up Capital Orbit to educate investors on long-term investing and markets.

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.

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.

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.

Hitesh Zaveri
SVP & Head – Listed Equity Alternatives, Axis AMC

Mr. Hitesh Zaveri joined Axis AMC in 2022 as SVP & Head – Listed Equity Alternatives. He is responsible for managing the Axis PMS portfolios along with relevant CAT-3 AIF strategies. Hitesh has over 25 years of experience in portfolio management, investment banking and equity research.

Prior to joining Axis AMC, he served as Head of Investments in the PMS business at Aditya Birla Mutual Fund.

He has pursued his MBA from Mumbai University, and has also completed a few programs from the Harvard Business School and from The Wharton School. He is alsoan alumnus of Harvard Business School and an Advisor to the Board of HBS Club of India.

Geetika Gupta
Fund Manager, ICICI Prudential AMC

Ms Geetika Gupta is Fund Manager – Portfolio Management Services & Alternative Investments Funds at ICICI Prudential AMC. She has over a decade of experience in investments, both in sell-side equity research and buy-side research. Prior to joining ICICI, she was Vice President at First Voyager Advisors for six years, where she was responsible for the fund’s investments in Indian equities.

She began her career in 2007 at Lehman Brothers covering US Equities and later interned with Morgan Stanley, Singapore in the Investment Banking Division in 2010. She comes with deep understanding of the BFSI sector, as well as in B2C businesses in the consumer and technology space. She is an alumnus of IIT Delhi (B.Tech, Chemical Engineering) and IIM, Ahmedabad.

Bhavin Shah
Portfolio Manager, Sameeksha Capital

Mr. Bhavin Shah is the Founder & Portfolio Manager at Sameeksha Capital. He has been rated the #1 technology sector analyst in Institutional Investors polls for a decade. He has Twenty years of experience building top research franchises: Seven years as Managing Director and the Global head of Technology at JP Morgan, Six years as Director and Head of Asia Pacific Technology at Credit Suisse and five years as founder of Equirus Securities. He has pursued a Double major in Economics and Finance, Beta Gamma Sigma cum laude from the University of Chicago Booth.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Siddhartha Bhaiya
Managing Director, Aequitas Investment Consulting Private Limited

Siddhartha is a qualified Chartered Accountant and the driving force behind Aequitas Investment and has around 20 years of experience into Equity research and Equity Fund Management. With Siddhartha’s multibagger and contrarian stock picking approach, Aequitas has delivered ~32%CAGR returns over the last 9 years. He has been instrumental in taking Aequitas from a start-up to a 20 bn INR AUM with one of the best performance track record in the industry. Siddhartha believes in generating outsized returns by investing in small cap undiscovered companies. Siddhartha started his career as a Research Analyst with Sushil Finance and has worked with Stratcap Securities, Principal PNB AMC & Reliance Capital Asset Management (RCAM).

Manoj Bahety
Co-founder & Portfolio Manager, Carnelian Asset Advisors

Manoj has over 20 years of a rich & diverse financial services experience having worked with marquee institutions including Edelweiss Securities, Morgan Stanley, RIL, HPCL. He last spent ~11 years at Edelweiss Securities. He is known for his differentiated, non-consensus research and pioneered forensic research, popularly known as “Analysis Beyond Consensus” (ABC research). Mr. Manoj has represented several committees of the CFA Institute including Chairperson of India advocacy committee and is a member of the US based global CDPC committee. He is a fitness freak and has been running marathons since the last 8 years.

Karthik Athreya
Head – Product & Strategy, Sundaram Alternates

Mr. KARTHIK ATHREYA is the Head – Product & Strategy at Sundaram Alternates with an objective to build a scalable alternatives fund business in fixed income starting with the Sundaram AIF Cat II Fund that focuses on investing in high yield opportunities. He has over 22 years of experience across principal investing, funds management, investment banking, corporate finance, assurance and transaction diligence services. He is a Qualified Chartered

Accountant and a Commerce graduate from Loyola College, Chennai, India.

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.