Managing Director & CEO

Mr. Suresh Kozhikote

Mr. Suresh Kozhikote has been appointed as Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer at SBICAP Ventures Limited (SVL) in June 2020. Prior to his appointment at SVL, Mr. Kozhikote was the Chief General Manager in State Bank of India (SBI).

Mr. Kozhikote has over 33 years’ experience in banking, having started his career with the State Bank Group in 1987. Mr. Kozhikote has handled  assignments both in India and overseas across various functions. He has been in treasury operations for more than 18 years – from a Forex dealer to Head – Treasury. His assignments include Vice President (Treasury) at SBI Central Treasury Hong Kong, Dy General Manager at State Bank of Patiala as Head of Treasury and then as Head of Retail Operations covering Delhi NCR, Haryana & Rajasthan.  Also, as Dy. General Manager (Taxation), he was in charge of GST project in SBI. As General Manager- Private Equity, he managed SBI’s portfolio of Private Equity, Strategic Investments and Investments in AIF.

Mr. Kozhikote is a Commerce Graduate, a Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers and has a Diploma in Treasury, Investment and Risk Management.

Chief Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Mr. Irfan Kazi

Irfan has almost 3 decades of work experience in various facets of alternate investments such as sourcing, analysing and recommending proposals for real estate and private equity investments, structuring and managing funds for private equity, international real estate and hedge funds and providing advisory services for mergers and IPOs.

He has been active in real estate private equity investments at asset management companies such as Rana Investments, ICICI Venture, Everstone, AIG Global Real Estate India and L&T Infra Investment Partners. He has held senior investment responsibilities in 8 funds including as a CIO in 4 funds – a Hedge fund of funds (USD 20mn), a hospitality fund (USD 200mn), a industrial (warehousing) fund (USD 250mn+) and now in SWAMIH, a stressed residential asset fund (USD 1.9bn).

Irfan holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Mumbai University, a MBA in Finance from Jamnalal Bajaj, is a postgraduate ICFAI Indian charter holder and was awarded the CFA charter by The CFA Institute, USA.

Chief Investment Officer (NEEV Funds) & Head – Fund of Funds

Mr. Akshay Panth

Akshay has close to 2 decades of experience in Private Equity, Principal Investments and Advisory roles with leading domestic and international investors. He started his career with the India Infrastructure Fund (a c.US$1Bn Infrastructure Fund managed by IDFC Alternatives) and has since worked with multiple private equity and principal investors. His previous experience includes working with CapAleph Private Equity, GMR Infrastructure, and MAPE Advisory Group.

At CapAleph, he handled the Infrastructure Support Services and Education & Skill Development segments for the Fund. At GMR Infrastructure, he was part of the Project Finance team working on the road sector where he submitted multiple bids to the NHAI. He has been part of teams that have invested over US$100Mn in the Indian infrastructure space.

Akshay holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and PGDM/MBA.

Principal Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Berinder Sahni

Berinder has over 2 decades of experience in Investments and financial services. He has worked on M&A, equity and debt offerings over US$ 2 billion. Berinder started his career with EY in Assurance services. He worked with the Investment banking arm of JPMorgan in India and United States. He was a part of the team that commenced the real estate investment banking practice at Colliers International in India. While at Colliers, Berinder worked with developers, NBFCs and private equity funds to raise US$ 250 million in debt and equity. As a Director in Unicus Advisors, he worked on Family office investments managing over US$250 million in assets. In his last role, Berinder led the corporate finance and strategy team of a large Mumbai based Developer

Berinder holds a Masters degree in Commerce, Chartered Accountant and a CFA charter holder.

Principal Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Nikhil Kejriwal

Nikhil has close to 2 decades of experience, largely into Real Estate Investment Management. He started his career in family business, he moved on to join the investment banking practice at Morgan Stanley. With platforms such as TCG real Estate, Milestone Capital and Capital India Finance, Nikhil has led investments in real estate project and handled the entire spectrum – deal origination, investment evaluation, transaction structuring, due-diligence, legal documentations, asset management and exits.

Nikhil holds bachelor’s degree in Commerce, Chartered Accountant, a CFA charter holder and MBA..

Principal Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Abdul Kader Suriya

Kader has close to 2 decades of rich work experience in various facets of real estate alternative investments, strategic advisory and investment banking. He has been a part of several full life cycle RE deals from investment appraisals to exit in his previous stints. He has been associated with marquee organisations like Morgan Stanley, ICICI Venture and Brookfield. He started his career with an arm of Morgan Stanley, focusing on investment banking in global real estate. Later, at ICICI Venture, for almost a decade, he led several notable acquisitions and financings (across various sectors, geographies and investment structures), portfolio management and eventually divestments for US$550MM real estate private equity funds as well as a domestic structured debt fund.

Kader holds bachelor’s degree in Commerce, M Com and is a Chartered Accountant.

Principal Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Vivek Agarwal

Vivek has close to 2 decades of experience, in Assurance, Consulting and Real Estate Investments across the Indian market. He started his career at Assurance practice of PwC and joined EY Transaction Support division. He was part of financial due diligence team working across sectors with focus on Real Estate. Later, he joined Xander Finance, NBFC arm of The Xander Group Inc. and led senior secured high yielding Real Estate investments across NCR, Hyderabad and Kolkata region for almost 8 years. Thereafter, he was part of Piramal NCR Investments team for around 2 years. Both at Xander and Piramal, he managed the entire gamut of commercial, residential and hospitality transactions. He also handed the entire spectrum of deal origination, investment evaluation, transaction structuring, due-diligence, legal documentations, asset management and exits.

Vivek holds bachelor’s degree in Commerce and Chartered Accountant.

Principal Investment Officer (SWAMIH Fund)

Rajat Goyal

Rajat has 2 decades of experience across various functions including private equity, strategy consulting and commercial banking with key focus on sectors like Real Estate and Infrastructure. He started his career as a commercial banker with Kotak Mahindra Bank and moved on to work with KPMG in consulting. In last 10 years, he has worked across various Real Estate and Infrastructure focused funds such as L&T Infra Private Equity, ILFS Investment Manager, Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisor and LOGOS India. He has worked across the spectrum of investment cycle i.e. identifying and evaluating investment opportunities, negotiations, structuring, underwriting, diligence and deal closure. At L&T Infra Private Equity, he has led investments and managed an AUM of US$ 150mn across real estate and infrastructure. At IL&FS, he was part of the US$ 1.4bn Real Estate private equity fund and was responsible for asset management & divestment. At Shapoorji, he led acquisition of $250mn commercial asset through a competitive bidding process. At LOGOS (Warehousing platform), he was responsible for acquisitions in North and West region.

Rajat holds bachelor’s degree in Commerce, Chartered Accountant and MBA.

Principal Investment Officer (NEEV Fund)

Suken Shah

Suken has over a decade of experience in fund raising investments and asset management across Infrastructure assets working with Private Equity, Principal Investments and Advisory firms. He has also a part of a leading family office, where he was responsible for investing and managing mid-market opportunities. He has also been a part of Brescon Advisors, where he provided financial and strategic advisory to mid and large corporates; he was instrumental in striking a JV with Piramal group to setup a USD 1 billion special situations investment platform.
Suken holds bachelor’s degree in Commerce, MBA in Finance and CFA charter holder.

Principal Investment Officer (NEEV Fund)

Jai Shah

Jai has over a decade of experience across Fund Management, Strategic Advisory, Equity Research and Investment Banking working with Kitara Capital, AltFort Capital. He has executed various deals in the Private Equity and Investment Banking space. He has been also involved fund raising, fund formation and strategic advisory roles.

Jai holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and MBA in Finance.

Principal Investment Officer ESG (SWAMIH Fund)

Tejaswini Kamat

Tejaswini has over 17 years of EHS & Sustainability experience in consulting as well as industry and has led interdisciplinary and diverse workstreams. Her key expertise areas include ESG, EHS Compliance, Impact, Human Rights, Gender Mainstreaming, EHS Excellence and Sustainable Supply Chain. She has delivered solutions across the investment life including supply chains for MNCs as well as zero-to-one businesses. She been the focal point for investors/ LPs and the promoters/ investee companies for delivering seamless integration of EHS & ESG aspects within Business-as-Usual. In her previous role, she led the ESG & Impact function at EverSource Capital (a JV between Everstone and Lightsource bp) as well as for their first Fund; Green Growth Equity Fund (first and largest in-country Climate Impact Fund). She has prior experience of 14 years in consulting and advisory role at ERM & Stantec. She has successfully managed several multinational key client accounts for delivering EHS services across the project lifecycle (M&A, Construction, Operational Excellence, Exit/ Closure and Supply Chain Management) in India, APAC, US and UK. She has a wide sectoral experience including manufacturing, chemical, pharmaceutical, financial services/ PE, textile, IT and services, data centres, supply chain, renewable energy and energy efficiency and real-estate.

Tejaswini also has over 12 years of academic experience as a visiting faculty and guide at University of Mumbai. She has been actively involved with industry cross-collaboration programs involving Companies, Investors, Regulators, Experts, Think-tanks, Thought-leaders, Academia, Industry Associations, Supply-chain Partners and NGOs.

Tejaswini holds bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Biotechnology, PG Diploma in Environmental Pollution Control Technology and Master’s in Environmental Science.

Vice President (NEEV Fund)

Anjana Seshadri

Having a market presence of 13+ years in the field of sustainability and ESG, Anjana leads the ESG and impact evaluation, action plan implementation for the funds, along with stakeholder management.

In addition to an important ESG compliance function, she plays a key role in delivering additional value from systemic improvements across the portfolio. Prior to her role at the fund, she was leading the sustainability programme at IndusInd Bank. Anjana has been awarded as the ‘Top under 40’ AIF professionals in 2021

She holds a master’s in planning with specialization in Environment from School of Planning & Architecture and a bachelor’s in architecture.