Dr. S Rama Iyer was the Executive Chairman of Aker Kaverner Powergas India (a leading service provider for projectsin the Oil and Gas, petrochemicals, and other sector). He has more than four decades of experience in Project Management & Engineering services. Dr. Iyer has received MTech and Ph.D from IIT Mumbai, and has also participated in the Senior Executive Programme conducted by London Business School.
He has been awarded “Distinguished Alumnus” award in 1996 by IIT, Mumbai; and “Achiever of the Year Award” (2003) & “Business Leader of the Year award” (Engineering Services, 2005) by Chemtech Foundation. Dr. Iyer serves on the Boards of BioCnergy Europa BV, Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals Corp. Ltd, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Ltd and Thirumalai Chemicals Ltd.
Nilesh Shah
Nilesh Shah is a Principal with RARE Enterprises (an asset management firm promoted by Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala).
At RARE, Nilesh’s focus is on growing strategic investments in diverse sectors including Financial Services, Infrastructure, Education, Consumer Services, Technology / Media, etc.
Nilesh is a Chartered Accountant with over 14 years of post-qualification experience.
Before joining RARE, Nilesh was the CEO and Managing Director of FIITJEE Limited – a leading education services company with 600 + professionals. Prior to that, Nilesh was the COO with a group company of Navneet Publications – India’s largest educational publishing house.
Nilesh began his career with the Reliance Group where he worked in the areas of Investments and Corporate Finance.
Ajay Garg - Managing Director & CEO
Ajay Garg is the founder of Equirus Capital. Ajay is a veteran investment banker, with a rich experience of more than 12 years. He is acknowledged as being amongst the top deal makers in the country.He started his career with DSP Merrill Lynch where he was involved with several landmark deals during his stint there between 1996-2002.
Prior to setting up Equirus, he was the group CEO of a leading investment bank which he co founded
Ajay holds a first degree in engineering and is a post graduate in management from IIM, Ahmedabad. Ajay can be reached at ajay@equirus.com
Abhay Bhalerao
Abhay is a veteran investment banker having more than 20 years of experience in capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, structured and corporate finance
He has held senior positions with leading organizations such as Standard Chartered Bank, DSP Merrill Lynch and The Chaterjee Group. Completed several notable equity, debt and advisory transactions for private and public sector organizations
Abhay hold first degree in Engineering and MMS from University of Mumbai.
Abhay can be reached at abhay@equirus.com
Management
Albert da Costa - Associate Director
Albert has more than 13 years of experience in capital raising. He has worked in senior positions with Investment Banks such as Brescon, Meghraj Corporate Finance and MAPE Advisory.
Albert was instrumental in setting up the structured finance practice at his previous assignments and has completed transactions in Infrastructure, Energy, Real Estate and manufacturing sectors.
Albert holds a first degree in engineering and is a post graduate in management from IMS, Indore.
Arun has more than 18 years of experience in the Media, animation, education, internet & technology companies.
Arun was Head of Mobile content at Yahoo and most recently CEO of Mauj.com (company he founded and made one of the successful mobile VAS player). In the past, he has also held senior positions at STAR TV – Radio City, MTV and Cnet.He is a post graduate in Commerce and Economics from Mumbai University.
Nikul Patel - Managing Director, Equirus LLC & Head – US Operations
Nikul Patel has more than 13 years of experience in operational and strategic management roles. He has worked for more than 11 years at Intel Corporation.
In his last role, he was responsible for inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions of technology companies.
In past he has managed enterprise scale IT programs for Intel. He is also a co-founder and promoter of Movoto.com, an internet generation real estate start-up. Nikul is currently completing executive MBA from the Wharton school, University of Pennsylvania.
Nikul also has masters degree in Computer Engineering and bachelors degree in Electronics and Communication.
Ravi has over 12 years of experience in corporate planning, strategy consulting and business development in India and US.
His key interest is to help Indian manufacturing and engineering companies to scale up to compete globally. He has worked for manufacturing and engineering services companies like Larsen & Toubro, Infosys, Cap Gemini, Neilsoft and Tata Autocomp Systems Ltd. (TACO) and has consulted/ sold to Daimler Chrysler, 3M, Delphi automotive.
Ravi is a mechanical engineer from IIT Chennai, and a post-graduate from IIM Ahmedabad.
Abhijeet has over 12 years of experience in Consulting and Corporate Finance including Private Equity & Project finance. He has in the past worked with Reliance Group, Meghraj Corporate Finance, Crisil and SBI Capital Markets. He holds a first degree in engineering and MMS in Finance from the University of Mumbai.
Charu has over 10 years’ experience working in operational as well as advisory roles with blue chip corporations, such as Colgate Palmolive and PepsiCo, Inc. Most recently, he spent over 4 years in investment banking at Bank of America, New York, where he executed approximately 20 transactions in M&A and capital raising, covering securities exchanges and financial technology sectors.
Charu holds a post-graduate degree from IIM, Ahmedabad, India, and an MBA from Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Mohit has over 5 years of post qualification experience and has been associated with Standard Chartered Bank and Lucent Technologies in his previous assignments. He has worked on multiple transactions including non recourse finance of Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus Group Plc, the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company.
He holds first degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering and is a post-graduate in management from IIM, Lucknow.
Narendra has over 5 years of experience in Financial Services sector. In his previous employment he was associated with a Category I Merchant Banker for more than 4 years and successfully completed various assignments.
Narendra is a Graduate in Commerce and also holds a Post Graduate degree in Business Administration with Finance as specialization.
Srinivas has over 5 years of experience of consulting, operations & IT and project management experience. He has been associated with large-scale strategic organizational iritiatives including service outsourcing, operations & manufacturing efficiency improvement. He has worked in Tata Motors, Thyssenkrupp (Europe), ECS Limited & HSBC India. He has worked on consulting assignments for L&T Cement (now Ultratech) and ITC Ltd. He has also been entrepreneur, running an IT company of product development for SMEs.
Srinivas is a mechanical from REC (now NIT) Trichy and a post graduate from IIM Ahemadabad.
The senior team at Equirus is ably supported by a team of 10 associates, who have relevant experience in the industry. The associates are CA, CFA or MBA from top business schools and have excellent transaction support skills.