Nitin Deshmukh

Advisor – Private Equity

Nitin is a career Venture Capital / Private Equity professional with over 33 years of investment experience who has seen the growth of the VC and PE space from being a mere nomenclature to being one of the most preferred financing vehicles in the country. Nitin’s uncanny ability to identify trends and leaders in their infancy and helping them realize their potential, has been the hallmark of his career. He has lead and managed investments in over 70 companies, a number of which have grown at a scorching pace attaining leadership position in pharmaceuticals, consumer and retails sectors. Of these, the largest number have been in Life Sciences (Pharmaceuticals, Biotech & Health Care), many of them today's global players and include Sun Pharmaceuticals, Biocon, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Ajanta Pharma, Syngene, Manipal Healthcare, Natco Pharmaceuticals, Advanced Enzymes, Neuland Laboratories, Gland Pharma, Bharat Serums & Vaccines, Intas Biopharmaceuticals, Metahelix Life Sciences (since acquired), Rubicon, Fem Care, Medicorp (since acquired), Bangalore Genei (since acquired) etc. He was a member of the Board of Directors of most of these companies.

Since early 2019, Nitin has been spearheading Kotak’s investments in early stage investment program to support new age businesses and differentiated innovations especially in the life sciences sector in the country. The strategy here is to invest in transformational healthcare companies developing and commercializing novel therapeutics, medical devices and services that address unmet medical needs through innovation. The team has since built a sizeable early stage portfolio of companies in this space leveraging on extensive relationships with pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions to advance delivery of affordable patient care with determination to positively impact society.

Nitin has a strong association with the India's Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industry, having served as the first honorary Director General of Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), the apex industry association of biotech companies in India and serving as it’s Director actively participating in various policy committees related to Biotech Policy and Funding constituted by Government of India’s - Department of Biotechnology ( DBT) & Department of Science & Technology ( DST).

Nitin is actively associated with DBT and DST’s start-up funding initiatives in Biotechnology / Life Sciences as a member of their Investment and Advisory Committees as well as their mentoring activities. He serves as a member of the Board of Governors of Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) (formerly UDCT) and is also an independent Board member of Veeda Clinical Research , AGD Biomedicals, Gencrest, Advy Chemical and Samta . Nitin also serves as a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) National Committee on Biotechnology.

Nitin holds an MBA degree from University of Bombay and a Masters Degree in Pharmaceutical Technology from ICT (earlier UDCT), Mumbai where his research work led to a patent filing on machine design for the manufacture of Novel Drug Delivery Systems. He also completed the Post-Graduation Programme in Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Nitin is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award 2012 from the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT), Mumbai earlier known as UDCT.

Dhiraj Rajendran

Executive Director

Dhiraj Rajendran joined Kotak Private Equity Group (KPEG) in November 2008. Prior to joining KPEG, Dhiraj worked with the mid-market investment banking team at Kotak for nearly a year, focusing primarily on private equity transactions.

Earlier, Dhiraj was with J.P. Morgan Services India Private Limited working in their investment banking research division as part of the M&A advisory team for the Consumer, Healthcare and Retail sectors. Dhiraj started his career with Thermax Limited in Pune. At Thermax, Dhiraj worked in the treasury department, where he was responsible for investment management, cash management and select banking functions.

Dhiraj is a Bachelor of Engineering from D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Mumbai (specializing in Production Engineering) and has a Post Graduate degree in Management from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Nidhi Chawla

Director

Nidhi Chawla joined Kotak Private Equity Investment team in April 2022. She has been with Kotak since November 2018 and headed the Alternate advisory desk at Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd where she was responsible for origination and diligence of PE/VC and Venture debt funds for advisory clients. Earlier she headed the Alternate products desk at Avendus Wealth Management Private Limited.

She has nearly 16 years of work experience with predominant focus in investment advisory. She started her career in financial services with HSBC Global Markets, London as trader in fund derivatives. Subsequently she worked at Canara Robeco Mutual Fund and Aditya Birla Money Mart Limited where she was responsible for financial planning and product diligence.

Nidhi is a Bachelor of Engineering from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore and has a Post Graduate degree in Management from IIM Bangalore.

Ankit Aggarwal

Associate Director

Ankit Aggarwal joined Kotak in October 2021 as an Associate Director and brings with him 14 years of investment experience.

Previously, Ankit has worked with Lighthouse Funds, Fosun Group and GKFF, investing in technology companies and public markets in US, Israel and India. He began his career with APAC focused hedge fund, Aeneas Capital Management.

Ankit is a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ashish Ranjan

Vice President

Ashish Ranjan joined Kotak Private Equity Group in September 2021. Prior to joining Kotak Private Equity, Dr. Ranjan was at Sanofi India, where he was leading consumer insights and new product planning for India. Dr. Ranjan was also part of the Cipla’s commercial and scientific diligence team with focus on building US specialty portfolio. He was primarily involved in assets identification and diligence based on scientific and commercial parameters ultimately to drive various acquisition opportunities from strategic and financial standpoint. He also worked as management consultant at IQVIA Consulting (formerly known as IMS health) where his work ranged from market access, commercial diligence, business strategy and health policy across life science/healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

He holds a Ph.D in Molecular Medicine from Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany and completed MS in Business Management from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. He received BSRT and Novo Nordisk scholarship respectively. Previously, he was also a fellow at the Institute of Medical Biology (A*STAR), Singapore. With more than 10 years of experience in research and industry, Dr. Ashish Ranjan comes on board with profound understanding of biological sciences and life science/healthcare industry.

Dr Rushikesh Deshpande

Associate Vice President

Rushikesh Deshpande joined Kotak Private Equity team in October 2021. He brings close to 9 years of experience of working in Healthcare sector in India across strategy, corporate finance and investment banking roles.

Prior to joining Kotak Private Equity, Rushikesh worked with India Medtronic in strategy (Growth projects) and corporate finance teams for close to 5 years. As a part of these roles, he engaged healthcare ecosystem to create and analyze investment proposals for public private partnership (PPP) models, specialty clinics, capital investments etc. In the past, Rushikesh has worked with advisory divisions of Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young to help companies raise private equity funds.

Rushikesh holds MBBS degree from Indira Gandhi Government Medical College (IGGMC), Nagpur and an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Sciences (NMIMS), Mumbai.

Sandesh Soni

Associate Vice President

Sandesh Soni joined Kotak Private Equity Group (KPEG) in May 2020. He brings with him 3 years of experience across investment banking, corporate strategy and system engineering roles.

Prior to joining KPEG, Sandesh was in the Investment Banking division at J.P. Morgan Services India where he specialized in M&A advisory for Diversified Industrials in North America. He serviced clientele across Aerospace, Automotive, Business services, Logistics and Transportation sectors. He also had a short stint in healthcare consulting and strategic partnerships at Philips India.

Sandesh pursued his Engineering from College of Engineering, Pune and holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Indore. He is also pursuing the CFA Program from CFA Institute, USA.

Parveen Yadav

Associate

Parveen joined Kotak Private Equity Group (KPEG) in February 2022. Prior to joining KPEG, Parveen was in the Investment Banking division at J.P Morgan Services India for 3 years where he specialized in capital raising and M&A advisory for TMT sector in North America. He worked on companies across software and internet space.

Parveen pursued his B.Com from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) and M.Com from Delhi School of Economics (DSE). He is an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Indore. He has also cleared Level 3 of the CFA Program from CFA Institute, USA

Suyash Poddar

Associate

Suyash joined the Kotak Private Equity Group (“KPEG”) in July 2022. Prior to joining KPEG, he was in the investment banking division at Motilal Oswal for three years specializing in raising private equity funds across the consumer industry.

Suyash pursued his B.Sc. Economics (Honors) from Presidency University, Kolkata. He is an MBA for Indian School of Business (ISB). He has also cleared Level 3 of the CFA program from CFA Institute, USA; as well as the FRM program from the GARP Institute, USA.

Suman Saha

Head – Infrastructure Fund

Suman Saha is Head of Kotak Infrastructure Fund at Kotak Investment Advisors Limited. Suman established the Infrastructure Funds management business of the Kotak Mahindra Group in 2013. The Infrastructure Funds team currently advises three Singapore – based fund vehicles which invest in core infrastructure in India.

Suman joined Kotak Mahindra Group in 1995 in its investment banking business. At Kotak Investment Banking, as Executive Director and Co–Head, Equity Product Group, Suman was involved in the origination and end–to–end execution of Equity Capital Market (“ECM”) transactions, including Initial Public Offerings and Follow–on Offerings of Indian companies. He has led some of the largest Indian ECM deals, several of which were in the Indian power, transport, other infrastructure and real estate sectors, like NTPC, Reliance Power, KSK Energy, JSW Energy, IPCL, Indraprastha Gas, IDFC, DLF, Sobha Developers etc. Prior to that, Suman set up and ran the project finance advisory business at Kotak Investment Banking, advising companies in the steel, automobile, power, gas distribution, storage terminal and other sectors.

Suman has over two and a half decades experience in project finance, investment banking, and infrastructure investing and asset management. He began his career in project finance in IDBI, prior to joining Kotak.

Suman is a 1991 graduate in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata and completed his post–graduation in Business Management from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Mukesh Soni

Executive Director

Mukesh is an Executive Director at Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (“KIAL”) and joined KIAL in 2021 to lead investments in the infrastructure sector. Earlier, Mukesh was Co-head at Apollo Global Management’s distressed asset buyout platform and lead their infrastructure investments in India. He joined Apollo in 2019 and before that, he had ~18 years of work experience and was executive director with AIRRO (JP Morgan’s Asian Infrastructure Fund) where he looked after the investments and the portfolio. Key investments being Leap Green (1.1 GW Wind Energy Platform), Soma Highways (9 NHAI roads) and Nandi Economic Corridor (Integrated Infrastructure project in Karnataka).

Prior to joining the JP Morgan in 2012, he had experience in covering mezzanine financing for infrastructure projects, advised clients for raising private equity, underwriting, and evaluating projects, due diligence for M&A globally with SREI Infrastructure Finance (One of the largest Infrastructure NBFC in India), Ernst & Young (Largest Infrastructure Advisory practice in India) and GE Capital (Global Investments).

Mukesh has been associated with over US$ 750 mn of financing in combination of mezzanine and debt for projects, covering sectors such as power, roads, logistics, SEZ, telecom and conglomerates. Apart from this, Mukesh was involved in raising private equity funding to the extent of US$ 300 mn. Mukesh started with GE’s global finance leadership program in 2002 and worked on the due diligence on the GE’s global M&A transactions and structured finance investments in US.

Mukesh is a chartered accountant, company secretary and is a commerce graduate from St Xaviers College, Kolkata. He also did his MBA in finance.

Akshay Gupta

Executive Director

Akshay is the Executive Director of Kotak Infrastructure Fund at Kotak Investment Advisors Limited. He is part of the Infrastructure Funds management business of the Kotak Mahindra Group. The Infrastructure Funds team currently advises three Singapore – based fund vehicles which invest in core infrastructure in India. Akshay joined Kotak Mahindra Group in 2011 and was part of the team that set up the Kotak Infrastructure Fund. He has been instrumental in closing four investment opportunities with aggregate investment requirement of USD 450 million in road transport, solar power and energy storage. Three of the transactions involved working closely with co-investors.

Prior to joining the Kotak Mahindra Group, Akshay was at the infrastructure advisory division of KPMG Advisory. At KPMG, Akshay led key engagements in the transport and energy sectors advising on market entry, financial feasibility, public private partnerships (PPP), due diligence and valuation. Some of his clients include Airports Authority of India, National Highways Authority of India, GMR Group, Reliance Industries, Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Cairn India, Sterlite Industries, etc. Prior to KPMG, Akshay was part of the Public Private Partnership team at CRISIL Risk and Infrastructure Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a division of CRISIL Ltd (A Standard & Poors Company).

Akshay has 13 years of experience in strategy consulting for infrastructure, and infrastructure investing and asset management. He began his career in the knowledge management team of McKinsey & Co.

Akshay is a 2002 graduate in finance from Delhi University and completed his post-graduation in Business Management in 2006 from XLRI Xavier School of Management.

Bhavyang Oza

Associate Director

Bhavyang is an Associate Director of Kotak Infrastructure Fund at Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (“KIAL”). Prior to joining KIAL, he has been a senior member of the Debt Capital Markets (“DCM”) team of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

He joined the Kotak Mahindra Group in 2009 and has over 20 years experience in DCM, where he has led the origination and execution of debt transactions across Indian loan and bond markets. He has successfully executed several DCM transactions involving vessel financing, project financing and refinancing transactions for multiple roads, renewables, greenfield ports and terminal expansions and a large overseas acquisition of coal assets by an Indian infrastructure developer. His clients included large infrastructure developers like Brookfield, Cube Highways, L&T IDPL, Sadbhav Engineering, Ashoka Buildcon, Krishnapatam Port, Karaikal Port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Tata Power Renewable Energy, Renew Power, Sembcorp, etc.

Prior to DCM, Bhavyang worked in the Investment Banking business of Edelweiss Capital, where he headed the structured and project finance business that was mandated to execute project finance and structured funding solutions for acquisitions, promoter funding and mezzanine funding. Prior to that, he has worked with Wachovia, Axis Bank and IFCI.

Bhavyang is a graduate in Chemical Engineering and also holds a Post Graduate Degree in Business Management.

Arjun Amlani

Vice-President

Arjun joined Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd in March 2020 & brings with him over 9 years’ of experience in project finance and corporate lending.

Prior to joining Kotak Infrastructure Fund, Arjun was a part of the Project & Structured Finance Group of Aditya Birla Infrastructure Finance (ABIF) at Aditya Birla Capital for about 5 years. He was extensively involved in origination, structuring and execution of deals in diverse infra & non-infra sectors. Apart from project finance and corporate loan transactions, he has also handled acquisition financing, construction financing, lease rental discounting and structured finance transactions.

Prior to ABIF, he was a part of the Project Finance & Strategic Business Unit of the State Bank of India (SBI), where he worked for over 4 years conducting due diligence, evaluating and underwriting credit and monitoring life cycle of infrastructure projects. He began his career in the audit and assurance verticals of Deloitte and EY.

Arjun is a CA, CS, FRM & B.M.S (Mumbai).

Pratik Mehta

Associate

Pratik joined Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd in February 2020 and has completed the Analyst program.

Prior to joining KIAL, Pratik was part of the Financial Advisory – Valuations (Domestic) practice at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP for over a year. During his tenure at Deloitte, he was engaged in conducting equity and business valuations for M&A, fund raising, financial reporting and compliance. He has advised several leading Private Equity Funds as well.

He began his career in the statutory audit function at Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP where he pursued his articleship training for three years.

Pratik is a Chartered Accountant, has cleared two levels of the CFA (USA) examination and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from the University of Mumbai.

Pratik Mehta

Associate

Raj joined Kotak Infrastructure Investment Fund (KIIF) in October’2022 as a part of the Investment Team, having an overall experience of 5 years into Investment Banking & Corporate Finance.

In his immediate previous stint at SBI Capital Markets Ltd (SBICAPS), Raj was part of Project Advisory and Structured Finance Group wherein he developed extensive exposure into Indian Infrastructure landscape having worked upon spectrum of corporate finance solutions involving Acquisition Financing, Securitisation, Refinancing, M&A, and Stressed Asset Resolution etc.

He has worked on transactions involving cumulative capital raising in excess of USD 2 billion for infrastructure projects including Roads and Renewables. He has worked on assignments with almost all the leading Infrastructure PE Funds & Developers in India during his stint at SBICAPS.

Prior to SBICAPS, he was with Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd in the Finance Controller’s team working on the corporate finance activities for India operations of Coca-Cola. One of the notable assignments herein was being a finance partner for the EBITDA Expansion Strategy of Coca-Cola with leading Global Management Consultant Kearney.

He has completed his Chartered Accountancy and cleared all three levels of CFA Programme.

Alroy Lobo

CEO – Listed Strategies

Alroy Lobo is a Kotak veteran. He has a total work experience of over 28 years in Indian equity markets.

He joined the Kotak Group as an equity research analyst in September 1993 when Kotak Securities was just building its equity research franchise. Alroy covered IT services, pharmaceuticals and the cement sectors and was ranked highly by polls conducted by Institutional Investors and Asia Money. Alroy rose to become the Head of Equity Research, Equity Strategist and the Head of Institutional Equities at Kotak Securities, at a time when Goldman Sachs was a joint venture partner. Alroy spent about 14 years in the institutional equities business at Kotak Securities, advising global institutional investors. He spearheaded formulation of a proprietary framework called ‘WHIZDOM’ at Kotak Institutional Equities, which is a powerful framework for evaluating stocks. Kotak Institutional Equities is ranked among the best equity research houses in India for several years by institutional investors.

Alroy’s next assignment was at Kotak Asset Management, where he played the role of Chief Strategist and Global Head of Equities Asset Management for over 8 years. He built a solid buy-side research team at Kotak AMC. He institutionalized fund management by creating robust investment systems and processes to aid fund management performance. These included a proprietary portfolio analytics tool called ‘K-PAX’, mid-cap and large cap model portfolios, knowledge management systems, broker voting systems and performance evaluation systems. Alroy, along with his buy-side research team, actively advised Kotak’s equity fund management team across Kotak Group entities, on stocks, sectors, portfolio construction and portfolio optimization. Alroy has spent a great deal of time interacting with institutional investors and family offices across the world to build and grow Kotak’s International Asset Management business.

Alroy joined Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd. in August 2015 as CEO - Listed Strategies to continue his passion in Indian equities. He is the Founding Member of the India Whizdom Fund, where he leverages his wealth of public equity experience and expertise, gathered over more two and a half decades.

Alroy is an accomplished Chartered Financial Analyst from CFA Institute as well as ICFAI. He is a first ranker in Masters in Management Studies (Finance) from Sydenham Institute of Management, Mumbai (1988). He is a gold medalist in Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Srinagar (1985). He is also a gold medalist Chartered Financial Analyst from ICFAI (1995).

Ameya Karambelkar

Associate Vice President

Ameya joined Kotak Listed Strategies in September 2021.

Prior to joining Kotak Listed Strategies, Ameya was part of the Research division of IIFL Institutional Equities for 4 years, where he tracked diverse sectors including IT services, Internet and Insurance, and was responsible for advising institutional investors on investments in listed Indian equities.

Ameya has also interned with Standard Chartered Bank’s Debt Capital Markets desk and KPMG’s deal advisory team. His pre-MBA work experience includes a stint with the passenger vehicle R&D division of Tata Motors.

Ameya holds an MBA from IIM Lucknow and a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from BITS Pilani Goa Campus.

Bhavesh Jain

Associate Vice President

Bhavesh joined Kotak Investment Advisors in November 2021 as Associate Vice President - Listed Strategies. He has a total work experience of over 10 years in Indian equity markets.

Prior to joining Kotak, he worked with ITI Mutual Fund as a fund manager where he was responsible for tracking pharmaceuticals, chemicals and agri sectors. Bhavesh has earlier also worked as an investment analyst with Envision Capital and Varanium Capital and as a research analyst with CRISIL.

Bhavesh has completed his Executive Masters’ in Business Administration from IBS, Hyderabad and Bachelor of Engineering (Computers) from D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Mumbai.

Eshwar Karra

CEO - Kotak Special Situations Fund

Eshwar joined the Kotak Mahindra Group in 2000 and brings with him over two decades of financial services experience. He is part of the core leadership team at Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd.

Eshwar is the CEO of Kotak Special Situations Fund where he oversees investments across all special situations, credit and stressed assets opportunities. The fund strategy is to invest in opportunities across all asset classes with a flexible approach to investing and structuring.

Prior to Kotak Special Situations Fund, Eshwar was the CEO of Phoenix Asset Reconstruction Company (a Kotak sponsored ARC) which had an AUM of USD 1 billion. During his 5 year tenure at Phoenix, he made investments across all major sectors and successfully resolved investments.

Eshwar was the founding member of the distressed assets business at Kotak and has helped the group in successfully investing over INR 2,500 crores (USD 417 million) of its proprietary capital in distressed assets. He has built time tested expertise in identifying distressed opportunities, structuring and executing complex financial transactions as well as securing profitable exits.

Prior to Kotak, Eshwar has worked at Ceat Financial Services (RPG Group) and Sundaram Finance Ltd.

Eshwar holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from the University of Pune and is a Management graduate from the Institute of Management Development and Research, Pune.

Rahul Chhaparwal

Executive Director

Rahul has been with Kotak Special Situation Fund since inception and plays a pivotal role across all the facets of its operations, including Fund Raise, Investor Interaction, Deal Origination, Investment, and Asset Management. As a representative of Kotak Special Situation Fund on the board of several Investee companies, he makes significant contribution in the strategic decision making, especially where the Fund has taken a controlling stake. Rahul has more than 16 years of diverse experience across Alternate Asset Investments, Investment Banking, Credit Rating and Management Consulting.

Rahul has been a part of the Kotak group for the past decade and prior to that he worked with CRISIL and A.F.Ferguson Consulting. He has hands-on experience of originating, structuring, and investing in transactions across sectors, situations, and capital stack.

Rahul is a Chartered Accountant and has a Master’s in Business Administration.

Rahul Shah

Executive Director

Rahul Shah has joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in January 2019 after spending more than 7 years with Kotak Private Equity Group. He brings with him more than 14 years of experience across private equity, investment banking and treasury, of which the last 10 years were in private equity.

Prior to joining Kotak, Rahul worked with Multiples Alternate Asset Management and Fidelity Growth Partners India where he was involved in several growth private equity transactions across IT, telecom, banking, services and infrastructure.

Before moving to private equity, Rahul worked in the Treasury and Investment Banking Group of ICICI Bank for 4 years where he led the TMT initiative for the Investment Banking group of the Bank.

Rahul is a CA, CS, CFA, FRM and MBA from INSEAD.

Shishir Srivastava

Vice President

Shishir Srivastava joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in February 2021 and brings with him 11 years of financial services experience of which 9 years were spent in private equity investing in India.

Previously, Shishir spent 6 years at Apollo Global’s India dedicated fund, AION Capital, a ~USD 1 billion fund where he was responsible for investments across buyouts, distressed and special situations. Prior to AION Capital, Shishir worked at Everstone Capital for a period of 3 years.

Shishir holds a B.E. degree in Electronics and Telecommunication from KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai and an M.B.A. from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon.

Pratik Parekh

Vice President

Pratik Parekh joined Kotak’s Special Situations Fund in January 2019 and brings with him almost 13 years of experience across distress investing, mergers, acquisitions, strategy and corporate finance.

Before joining Kotak Special Situations Fund, Pratik was part of Kotak Mahindra Bank’s Asset Reconstruction Business for almost 3 years, focusing primarily on investment, restructuring, resolution (forensic) & turnaround of distressed assets across sectors.

Earlier, Pratik was part of the Group Strategy team at Kotak Mahindra Bank for 5 years and has worked on Kotak's investment in ING Vysya Bank, Airtel Payments Bank, MCX India and various other assignments of Kotak Group for driving productivity & profitability. He started his career with Walplast Products Private Limited in the corporate finance division and worked there for almost 2 years.

Ankit Deora

Vice-President

Ankit Deora joined Kotak Special Situations Fund (“KSSF”) in July 2021 and is heading the Asset Management Function at KSSF. He is a seasoned credit professional with 12+ years of diverse experience in the areas of risk assessment across large corporates, structured finance and distressed asset credit.

Prior to joining Kotak, Ankit spent 4+ years at Edelweiss wherein he was responsible for managing the credit risk for AUM of ~USD 1.5 billion for Edelweiss Distressed Asset Business. Prior to that, he was working with ICRA for 8 years executing credit rating assignments of listed/unlisted corporate entities encompassing diverse sectors.

Ankit holds a Bachelor of Management Studies (BMS) degree from NM College (Mumbai University) and an M.B.A. from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai. He has also completed CFA from CFA institute, USA.

Amrit Jaiswal

Vice President

Amrit Jaiswal joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in December 2022 and has 10 years of rich and diverse experience across multiple private equity and investment banking firms. He was awarded 40 under 40 Alternative Investment Professional.

In his last private equity role at Oman India Joint Investment Fund, he evaluated, sourced and consummated multiple private equity investments across sectors, and completed profitable exits. He was awarded Economic Times Young Leader 2019.

During his previous Investment Banking roles across Edelweiss and MAPE, he handled Private Equity, IPO and M&A deals across the transaction lifecycle and consummated multiple transactions including the USD 80mn sale of a domestic pharma business. He was awarded Edelweiss Emerging Leader 2019.

In his founding years at Goldman Sachs - Investment Banking Division and Barclays - Proprietary Desk he successfully completed multiple marquee deals working across India and New York offices.

He is a rank-holder post graduate from IIM Indore and a rank-holder IT engineering graduate from Delhi University. He is a CFA charter holder and a FRM. He did “Leading with Finance” program from the Harvard.

Sanket Haleangadi

Associate

Sanket joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in August 2021.

Before joining Kotak Special Situations Fund, Sanket was working with the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank where he was aligned with the UK mergers & acquisitions team. He has worked mainly with FTSE100 clients across sectors - tobacco, consumer healthcare, gaming, retail. Prior to his stint at DB, he had worked with Pantaloons (ABFRL) in their Finance & Commercial team.

Sanket is a Chartered Accountant and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in Law from Government Law College, Mumbai and a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai.

Himanshu Punjabi

Associate

Himanshu joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in September 2021.

Prior to joining Kotak Special Situations Fund, Himanshu was part of the Management Consulting team at EY-Parthenon in Singapore for ~1 year, where he was involved in advising MNCs on Revenue Growth Management, Profitability Improvement, Pricing strategies etc. for South East Asian Market.

Earlier, Himanshu has worked in Investment Banking for 3.5 years, focusing on helping companies raise growth capital and on cross-border M&A activity. His experience spans across sub-sectors such as Food & Beverage, Industrials, Chemicals, Automotive Components, etc.

Himanshu is a CA and holds an MBA from Indian School of Business and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from H. R. College of Commerce & Economics.

Rishabh Sarda

Associate

Rishabh joined Kotak Special Situations Fund in June 2022.

Prior to joining Kotak Special Situations Fund, Rishabh was part of EY’s Restructuring & Turnaround Services where he was part of the team that successfully completed the Resolution Process for India’s first Financial Service Provider (FSP) Company. He has also worked on various fund raise and debt refinancing and restructuring assignments.

Earlier, Rishabh had also worked in EY’s Business Consulting Team, focusing on helping companies redesign fragmented processed, reduce process inefficiencies, redraft financial and operations KPIs and ensure its successful implementation. His experience spans across sub-sectors such as BFSI, Real Estate & Infrastructure and Travel & Tourism.

Rishabh is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from H. R. College of Commerce & Economics. He is also pursuing CFA (Level 3 Candidate) from CFA institute, USA.

Akshit Sandooja

Associate

Akshit Sandooja joined KSSF in June-2022 and has ~4 years of experience in Investment banking across PE fundraises and M&A. Prior to Kotak, Akshit worked for ~3 years at Dolat Capital, where he was instrumental in setting up the investment banking practice. His experience spans across Technology (SaaS / IT Services), Consumer and Healthcare sector.

Akshit is an Electronics engineer from BITS Pilani and has completed his Masters in Finance from IE Business School, Madrid. He has also completed his MBA in Finance and Strategy from Indian School of Business (ISB).

Divvya Mutreja

Analyst

Divvya Mutreja joined KSSF in April-2022 as an Asset Management Analyst. She has a capital market experience of ~2.5 years & is skilled in equity investing. She has worked at SD Real Estate Consultants for one year where she performed valuations, built client- focused proposals & closely tracked market trends. She has also interned at Phoenix ARC where she worked across various departments from acquisitions to resolutions & gained exposure to Distress Asset Investing.

Divvya holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (Mumbai) where she was also awarded the Dean’s List and has cleared CFA Level II.