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The Official Blog of Acuity Knowledge Partners
Braving the Storm: Resilience amid Global Headwinds
Published on January 6, 2021 by Rohan Verma
The onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic has caught the global oil and gas industry by surprise and has prompted many major oil & gas firms to review their investment strategy. The pandemic is adding to the woes of the oil & gas industry which is already plagued by declining oil prices and oversupply. The spread of the virus has triggered an economic slowdown which in turn has taken a toll on the Mergers & Acquisitions activity in the oil and gas sector globally. This has been exacerbated by production cuts in the downstream value chain, frequent assessments of short-term strategies to identify core and non-core assets and portfolios, and unprecedented cuts in operating spend and capital outlays.
Deal Landscape in the Oil & Gas Sector
The past few years have seen M&A activity plummeting across sectors and geographies, however, the total deal value in 2019 was above the five-year average despite a collapse in deal count as shown below primarily attributable to large-scale consolidation as well as large-scale, noncore divestitures from oil & gas majors.
Source: Deloitte
The majority of deals currently in the pipeline involve either financially distressed companies or stranded assets that are unwilling to be consolidated or are being offered very low valuations. Private equity players are particularly apprehensive about investing given the current market scenario, even though valuations are materially lower leading to a drop in deal activity in both downstream and upstream sectors.
Total oil & gas industry M&A deals worth $23.95bn were announced globally in Q2 2020 which were markedly low as compared to the same period last year.1 Middle East and Africa held the top position, with total announced deals in the period worth $11.29bn. At the country level, the United Arab Emirates topped the list in terms of deal value at $10.12bn. Form a volume perspective, North America emerged as the top region for oil & gas industry M&A deals globally, followed by Asia-Pacific and then Europe.
M&A oil & gas by region in Q2 2020
Source: Global Data Deals Database
The snag in deal activity can be primarily attributed to the following factors:
-
Most of the acquisition targets, particularly in the United States are under huge financial stress with accumulated distressed assets that have deteriorating bottom lines and are burdened by high, expensive debt
-
Lower oil prices have put a strain on the bottom line of small upstream players drying up their fundraising capacity
-
Distressed players in the industry are holding on to their assets for sustenance thereby diminishing the possibility of divestures
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Shift in private equity focus from early stage oil producers to companies with proven reserves, which are less susceptible to oil price fluctuations bolstered by the fact that US based Oil & Gas focused funds have been the lowest yielding assets over the last 10 years2
-
Prominent Oil & Gas firms with the firepower to drive M&A are currently focusing on devising new strategies to reduce operational costs, rather than putting efforts on M&A due diligence
In the wake of the global headwinds facing the oil & gas industry many oil & gas firms are taking deliberate steps to manage uncertainity in order to strengthen their resilience and ensure long-term sustainability.
Major Trends
The downstream sector has in particular witnessed a strong recovery in the past few months, with Global investment in new downstream oil refining and integrated chemicals capacity likely to average $55 billion per year to 20253.
In the global context, the following factors are driving investments:
-
Consolidation and modernization of China's refining sector
-
Middle East Exporters focusing on strategic expansions
-
Surge in chemical demand aiding the petrochemical industry
-
Midstream assets becoming lucrative targets
-
Private Equity players mopping up attractive deals
China participating in Megaprojects leading to downstream expansion
China is investing heavily in mega-refineries (refineries with capacity>0.3 million bpd) which essentially integrates fuel and chemical production. China, in its current state is facing shortage of petrochemicals, however, with these projects in pipeline it is poised to meet this shortfall by extracting a greater share of petrochemicals from each oil barrel and accelerate the phase-out of China’s small independent refiners, which are mostly simple fuel-oriented facilities.
Global downstream capacity additions to 2025
Source: Bloomberg NEF. Note: Highlighted projects are >300k b/d capacity
Heavy Investment in downstream assets by Middle East Majors
National Oil Companies in the region are actively pumping money into major growth centers across Asia Pacific with investments in countries like India becoming a strategic necessity. Investing across geographies acts as a natural hedge against oil price volatility and the long-term risks to oil demand amid the energy transition.
Strong demand for petrochemicals
Chemical production in particular has become an increasingly important end-use across various industries with demand typically projected above GDP for developed countries. The continued push into petrochemicals by oil and gas majors has directly induced standalone petrochemical companies to compete. This could drive further M&A activity as petrochemical companies look to shed disadvantaged assets or move downstream into more specialized intermediates. Majority of capacity additions in the near future will have a strong focus on petrochemicals with established oil & gas majors looking to boost up petrochemical production.
Strong deal making in the near future for midstream assets
Midstream assets will continue to be a value-creating component for the oil & gas industry value chain in light of the current economic scenario with large corporations on the lookout for well-located midstream assets supported by contracts with creditworthy counterparties as potential targets. Midstream assets have become a strategic necessity for firms in these times as the costs of contracting these services to third parties has become prohibitive given the low oil prices. Eventually, demand will pick up post COVID-19 and with lower oil prices making it expensive to store and transport oil & gas it will be imperative for oil & gas companies to own strategic midstream assets to optimize its value chain.
Private Equity Leading from the front
As reported by Bain Capital4, Private Equity players have accumulated a lot of dry powder in 2020 and are currently on the lookout for high yielding attractive investment opportunities to diversify and enhance their existing portfolios. The PE sector saw 10 deals happen in Q2 2020 with the $1.4bn private equity deal with CenterPoint Energy by Bluescape Energy Partners, Elliott Management and Fidelity Management & Research taking top position. Portfolio reshuffling and liquidity-driven transactions could play a pivotal role in driving private equity investments with investors pivoting from production to infrastructure assets.
Acuity Advantage
Acuity Knowledge Partners has been assisting energy and utility firms with benchmarking analysis helping identify attractive acquisition targets. Our team of experienced valuation professionals and industry experts can help identify and understand intrinsic values of potential targets and help you decide the attractiveness of potential assets. We offer transaction analysis by identifying and benchmarking the industry peer universe and drawing analysis that aid in better investment decisions.
Bibliography/Sources:
1. Global Data’s deals database
2. Preqin Database
3.Bloomberg - https://about.bnef.com/blog/downstream-oil-investment-shrugs-off-covid-19/
4. Bain Capital Private Equity Report 2020
5. Deloitte M&A Report - https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/energy-and-resources/articles/oil-and-gas-mergers-and-acquisitions.html
6. Offshore Technology Report- https://www.offshore-technology.com/deals-analysis/oil-gas-industry-ma-deals-in-q2-2020/
7. JWN Energy Report- https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2020/7/27/pandemic-hits-upstream-m-hard-q2-2020/
8. BCG Report- https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/covid-19-causes-uncertainty-in-oil-and-gas-mergers-and-acquisitions%20
9. PWC M&A Report
What's your view?
About the Author

Delivery Lead
Rohan is aligned with Acuity’s Strategy Research and Consulting team with over 5 years of experience in project execution and delivery of financial, valuation and strategy related projects for the Financial Institutions Group (FIG), Private Equity & Venture Capital, and Corporate clients.
He specializes in strategy development, deal structuring, financial analysis, DCF Valuation, trading comps, transaction comps, and financial modelling, and has in the past supported the deal structuring and corporate finance teams of various clients including the Big 4 firms. He has also proactively worked on various strategy and technology consulting assignments including a feasibility study for a Big 4 client pertaining to emerging technologies.
Comments
Shobha Bhardwaj
07-Jan-2021 11:41:10 am
Well presented.

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Anamika Deshwal
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Anamika Deshwal is a part of Acuity Knowledge Partners - PE & Consulting team, wherein she has worked on projects for numerous clients across sectors including technology, financial services and payments. Her functional expertise includes strategic research, company profiling, competitor analysis & benchmarking, besides GTM market studies. Anamika holds a PGDM in Business Analytics from IMT Ghaziabad and BE in Electronics and Communication from Chitkara University, Himachal Pradesh.


Govardhanagiri Prem Sai
Analyst
Govardhanagiri Prem Sai is an analyst with a year experience in the commercial lending division at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He is currently part of team of a team undertaking financial spreading and covenant monitoring for a US based bank. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce and a PG certificate in finance


Raja Sekhar
Delivery Manager
Raja Sekhar is a Delivery Manager in the Technology Practice within the Private Equity and Consulting Group at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over eight years of experience in working with strategy teams of Fortune 500 companies. Currently, he supports Strategy and insights team of a large Fortune 300 FinTech corporation headquartered in the US. Raja has extensive experience in assisting Venture capitalists and Innovation arms of FTSE100 corporations in identifying disruptive startups and supporting digital transformation agendas. He holds a Bachelors of Engineering degree from BITS-Pilani.


Ayman Nuhuman
Delivery Lead
Ayman Nuhuman has over 14 years of work experience including two years in commercial lending. He is currently part of the IBOR transition team for leading European bank. Prior to Acuity Knowledge Partners, he was part of a boutique consulting firm in Sri Lanka. Ayman has exposure in Management Accounting and Auditing from one of the Big four audit firms in the Sri Lanka. Ayman is Associate Member of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) and has completed Level I examination of the Chartered Financial Analyst examination.


Rohan Verma
Delivery Lead
Rohan is aligned with Acuity’s Strategy Research and Consulting team with over 5 years of experience in project execution and delivery of financial, valuation and strategy related projects for the Financial Institutions Group (FIG), Private Equity & Venture Capital, and Corporate clients.
He specializes in strategy development, deal structuring, financial analysis, DCF Valuation, trading comps, transaction comps, and financial modelling, and has in the past supported the deal structuring and corporate finance teams of various clients including the Big 4 firms. He has also proactively worked on various strategy and technology consulting assignments including a feasibility study for a Big 4 client pertaining to emerging technologies.


Ankit Lakhotia
Delivery Lead
Ankit is a Delivery Lead in the Debt Capital Markets practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. With more than 5 years of experience, he has expertise in working with investment banks, providing support on daily/weekly market updates, preparing pitch books, pricing updates, and capital structure analysis. He supports the global DCM team of a major European investment bank and has developed good understanding of the investment grade markets across US and Europe.
Ankit holds a MBA in Finance from K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management Studies & Research, Mumbai and earned his B.Tech.(CSE) from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida. He has also cleared Level II of the CFA Program (USA).


Akshat Mehrotra
Delivery Manager
Akshat has been working in Debt Capital Markets domain since past six years and has more than eight years of work experience. He carries rich exposure of working in Investment Grade, Leverage Finance and FIG businesses with origination as well as Syndicate teams. Over the years, he has worked on RFPs, pitch books, capital structure, sustainable finance projects, bond pricing, market commentary etc. Prior to his current role, he was working with Royal Bank of Scotland, where he focused on the leverage finance business for European corporate clients. He has also worked with a financial research firm, where he prepared credit research, risk assessment strategic pitches for a US conglomerate. He was also part of a project at client location, Goldman Sachs for a regulatory project – DoddFrank
Akshat holds a PGDM from Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai and earned his B.Tech (Computer Science) from UPTU.


Nikita Chhabra
Senior Associate, Investment Banking
Nikita Chhabra is a part of the Investment Banking team at Acuity and currently works for a prominent boutique investment bank in the US. She has a total work experience of over 6 years and has rich exposure working on a variety of research and analysis assignments serving clients ranging from top asset managers, PE firms to bulge bracket investment banks.
Nikita holds an MBA in Finance and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.


Nishanth Neeli
Delivery Lead
Nishanth Neeli has over 7 years of experience in investment compliance with a prior working experience at Goldman Sachs. At Acuity Knowledge Partners he is responsible for process supervisory, coding and post trade management support of Investment Compliance Services. Nishanth has done his Masters in Actuarial Science from Bharatidasan University.


Bijaya Das
Delivery Lead
Bijaya is an investment compliance specialist with 7 years of experience primarily in post trade monitoring and performance reporting. She has worked for various firms including State Street, Northern Trust and Ernst & Young. At Acuity Knowledge Partners she is working as a supervisor supporting post trade compliance services. She has done her PGDBM in Finance from Jain University, Bangalore.


Manisha Baid
Assistant Director
Manisha is part of the Commercial Lending Projects and Transition team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She has over 13 years of experience in transitioning and leading teams and projects for commercial and investment banking clients. Prior to Acuity, she worked as an equity capital market analyst at Goldman Sachs and as an offshore investment banking analyst for Bear Stearns. She holds an MBA in Finance from MDI, Gurgaon and a Bachelors in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi


Kiran Kumar
Associate Director
Kiran has been with the firm since November 2009 and overall 15+ years of experience in IB offshoring. His responsibilities include managing one of the large IB engagement and relationship, coordinating with staffers and bankers on new initiatives and services, soliciting feedback, working with teams to identify and improve efficiencies and productivity, training team members on complex and value-added analysis, and implementing industry best practices in the Acuity team for IB Analytics.


Rajkumar Bodduna
Analyst, Compliance
Raj is an Investment Guidelines Professional with 2+ years of experience in Coding, Monitoring, Reporting, and Testing in Compliance Systems. He is adept at logical coding and monitoring of investment guidelines in Sentinel. He holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing.


Anup Dhanuka
Delivery Manager, Investment Research
Anup Dhanuka has eight years of experience in equity research, supporting both buy-side and sell-side clients. He has been with Acuity Knowledge Partners for five years and has worked with buy-side fund managers in the consumer, real estate and healthcare sectors. In his current role, he supports a buy-side fund manager with coverage of real estate and healthcare stocks in the MENA region. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from T.A.Pai Management Institute in Manipal, India.


Dilshani Amarasinghe
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Dilshani Amarasinghe has over 6 years of experience in commercial lending and currently works as a Delivery Lead attached to the Commercial Lending Division at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She supports the Commodities, Food and Agriculture sector of a leading European bank, undertaking the validation and monitoring of covenants, financial spreading and performing risk ratings. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, she worked as an Assistant Relationship Manager attached to the SME credit sector in a Sri Lankan bank. Dilshani is an Associate Member of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK). She holds a Master’s Degree in Financial Economics (MFE) and a Bachelor’s degree in Science (Physical Science) from the University of Colombo.


Sharmila Thambawita
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Sharmila Thambawita has over 10 years of work experience including 3 years in Commercial Lending. Currently she is a Delivery Lead, overlooking a team of analysts responsible for the Structured Export Finance sector of a leading European based bank. Prior to this, she has served diverse client engagements in both the equity and fixed income verticals. Sharmila is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK).


Arjun R D
Data Scientist, Data Science Operations
Arjun R D has over six years of experience in providing data analytics for financial services firms. His areas of expertise cover product analytics, sales and marketing analytics, campaign measurement, secondary research, statistical modelling and data visualization. At Acuity, Arjun provides product analytics, business intelligence and bespoke reporting solutions to a leading US bank. Previously, he provided analytical solutions to the sales and marketing practice of a leading asset management firm with over USD3tn in assets. He holds a master’s degree in Management specializing in Finance and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering specializing in Computer Science.


Surbhi Choudhary
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Surbhi is a Delivery Lead, with more than 4 years of experience in the Commercial Lending division at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She is currently part of the Transport and Logistics sector team undertaking covenant monitoring and validation, financial spreading and commentary, performing risk ratings for a leading European based bank. She has also supported a US based bank within the same vertical. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Finance and a Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.)


Shefali
Delivery Lead
Shefali is a Delivery Lead in the Strategy, Research and Consulting team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She has more than five years of experience in the field of natural gas and LNG market as well as, LNG shipping research and consulting. She has experience including natural gas and shipping demand and supply forecasting, consulting, and maritime and natural gas sector research and advisory. She has published a number of globally acclaimed LNG sector reports and contributed to leading industry magazines and journals. She holds a BSc degree in Economics and Business Management from University of London and diploma in economics from University of London.


Sankar Raghukumaran
Associate, Investment Banking
Sankar Raghukumaran has about 3 years of experience with the IB team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. Currently he supports one of the mid-market investment banks based out of the U.S. Sankar gained experience in areas of M&A, Equity Capital Markets (ECM) and Debt Capital Markets (DCM). Recently he is supporting the bank on their European operations in prospecting as well as pitching activities for various sectors such as Technology, Industrials and Consumer. Sankar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Honours) and a Master’s in Business Administration (focusing in Finance), both from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL), India.


Revathy Purushotaman
Senior Associate, Commercial Lending
Revathy is Senior Analyst in Acuity Knowledge Partners’ Commercial Lending team. She has significant experience in the real estate sector. Revathy has more than 5 years of experience in credit underwriting, asset management, due diligence and ad hoc research, among others.
She holds an MBA in Finance from MG University, Kerala.


Ambika Kalyankar
Senior Associate, Commercial Lending
Ambika has 5 years of experience in financial services and commercial lending. She joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in October 2018 as Senior Associate and is part of the Commercial Real Estate team, underwriting US and UKCRE loans and CMBS deals. Previously, she worked in Genpact.
Ambika holds an MBA in Finance from PES Institute Technology, Bangalore.


Ayush Kumar
Assistant Director, Commercial Lending
Ayush is part of the Strategic Initiatives Team responsible for creating BEAT products. He has over 12 years of experience in supporting investment and commercial banks. At Acuity, he is the product owner of commercial lending pods, overseeing the development of lending products such as CovenantPulse and CreditReport Pulse. He previously worked with Ernst & Young.


Mohit Sachdeva
Delivery Lead, IB
Mohit is a delivery lead in the Rating Advisory practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has expertise working with investment banks, providing support on rating for corporates, banks and NBFCs covering indicative rating analysis, debt headroom assessments, market update, ratings pitch, credit positioning and benchmarking. He supports the global rating advisory of a major European investment bank.
Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked as a Rating Analyst at CRISIL Ratings, where he was involved in conducting rating analysis of mid-size corporates across different industries. He holds Post Graduate Diploma in Management from International Management Institute, New Delhi and Bachelors in Technology (Mechanical) from NIT Jalandhar.


Anustup Ghosh Dastidar
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Anustup has over 12 years of overall work experience including 10 years in Commercial Lending. He has worked in Diversified Lending team undertaking tasks like covenant validation & monitoring, financial spreading & commentary and performing risk raters for a leading European based bank. Currently he is part of the Structured Export Finance team. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has worked in a couple of multinational companies where his primary responsibility was preparation of credit review reports for corporates. He holds a Master's degree in Business Administration (Finance specialization).


Rahul Wadhawan
Delivery Lead, PE and Strategic Research
Rahul Wadhawan has been with Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity) for five years and has in-depth business research experience. In his current role, he provides support on pilot projects, rapid research work, report writing and database research.
He also worked in Acuity’s Costa Rica office for more than two years, supporting a rapid research division. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the Apeejay School of Management and a B.com(P) degree from the University of Delhi.


Anurag
Delivery Manager
Anurag has over 12 years of experience in the financial services and banking domains in managing commercial credit portfolios and writing reports such as thematic credit, credit rating, annual review and counterparty risk reports. His key responsibilities at Acuity include managing a credit portfolio for a US-based regional bank. Prior to joining Acuity in 2019, Anurag worked as a manager with a large US bank.


Mohak Mantri
Associate Director, Commercial lending
Mohak is part of the Commercial Lending Projects and Transition team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over 13 years of experience in transitioning global projects and leading operations teams for wholesale lending, leasing operations, treasury services and consumer banking functions. Mohak is dual Six Sigma Green Belt certified and has expertise in consulting projects across operations and risk-based control testing and monitoring. He holds an MBA in International Business Strategy from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) Delhi.


Vidhi Bhamra
Data Analyst, Data Science Operations
Vidhi Bhamra has over 4 years of experience in data analysis and visualization services across Financial Services, Healthcare and Retail industries. At Acuity, she providers data analytics, business intelligence and visualization support to a leading US-based investment management firm. Prior to joining Acuity, she worked as a Senior Data Analyst for a niche knowledge services firm in India. She holds a Master’s Degree in Economics.


Subhajeet Kumar Roy
Senior Data Analyst, Data Science Operations
Subhajeet Kumar Roy has over 6 years of experience in data analytics across Financial Services, FMCG and Healthcare industries. He has worked extensively in business Intelligence mandates and has applied statistical methodologies to deliver critical outcomes. At Acuity, he provides business intelligence and visualization support to a leading US-based investment management firm. Prior to joining Acuity, he has worked with a Big Four accounting firm and a tier-1 consulting firm in their data analytics operations.


Thanusha Rajapakshe
Assistant Director, CFA, ACA
Thanusha has been a part of the Acuity Forensic Analysis team for 9 years, and has 14 years of total work experience. She currently supports a Europe-based asset manager in providing forensic support, and provide quality-control support on deliverables of team members in preparing accounting diagnostic reports for various industries, including banks, NBFI, insurance, energy, automotive, and technology. Prior to joining Acuity, she worked as an Assistant Manager at the Department of Professional Practice (DPP) at KPMG, where she was engaged in IFRS-related advisory services and IFRS conversion projects. During her tenure at KPMG, she has also worked at the tax and regulatory division and the auditing division, where she was exposed to an array of industries, including banking and finance, insurance, manufacturing and trading, and logistics. She is an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka, a CFA Charter holder, and currently pursuing her Master’s in Business Administration at the Postgraduate Institute of Management affiliated to Sri Jayawardenepura University.


Fawas Ahamed
Assistant Director, ACA, ACMA (UK), ACCA (UK)
Fawas has been a part of the Acuity Forensic Analysis team for 8 years, and has 13 years of total work experience. He is knowledgeable in forensic analysis, investment research (with focus on quality of earnings), and auditing, and is well versed on corporate governance best practices and the UK combined code. Currently at Acuity he works as Senior Forensic Analyst engaged in preparing and supervising accounting diagnostic reports and their updates, supervising forensic-lite reviews, and providing forensic accounting support for clients looking to short stocks. Fawas started his career at Ernst and Young, where he was Executive in charge of statutory audits at the time of leaving. He is an Associate member of CA Sri Lanka, an Associate member of ACCA (UK), an Associate member of CIMA (UK) and has completed level II of the CFA examination.


Ramesh Dharanipathy
Assistant Director, Investment Research
Ramesh Dharanipathy has over 12 years of experience in investment research. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked as an Investment Analyst in a hedge fund. Ramesh holds a Bachelor of Engineering and MBA degrees from Indian universities.


Ghanshyam Bhambhani
Delivery Manager
Ghanshyam is a Delivery Manager in the Technology Practice within the Private Equity and Consulting Group at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over seven years of experience of working with strategy teams of Fortune 500 companies. Currently, he supports senior strategy staffers of the Capital Markets solutions team of a US headquartered Fortune-500 Fintech Corporation. Ghanshyam previously worked at Bain, where he assisted clients across industries, in strategy formulation – ranging from market entry, product portfolio revamping, competition monitoring and white space identification to cost cutting. He holds an MBA in marketing from IBS Hyderabad and Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA) from the University of Rajasthan


Rashmi Gupta
Senior Associate, Consulting
Rashmi has been associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity) since 2018 and has around four years of experience in the business research and consulting domains. She has extensive experience in working across industries, on products ranging from company and industry benchmarking reports to deep-dive market opportunity assessment studies.
Prior to her role at Acuity, she was associated with a renowned executive research firm based in Gurgaon, India, supporting consultants globally in their business development initiatives. During her tenure there, she worked primarily with the Leadership Consulting team, providing research on white papers, thought leadership on talent strategy and related products. Rashmi holds an MBA from Coventry University, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from University of Delhi, India.


Deepak Chaturvedi
Data Scientist, Data Science Operations
Deepak Chaturvedi has over 7 years of experience in financial services and banking domain in managing credit card portfolios, designing and analyzing marketing campaigns, providing analytics solutions for US credit cards, US retail stores, consumer banking analytics and enhancing customer experience. His key responsibilities at Acuity include developing and implementing analytic solutions and business intelligence dashboards for our financial services clients. Prior to joining Acuity in 2019, Deepak worked as a senior business analyst with a tier-1 global bank.


Nimit Sharma
Assistant Director, IR
Nimit has been a part of Acuity Knowledge Partners Investment Research team for over 9 years. His core expertise in extensive financial modelling and research writing spanned through several industries including Financials, Energy, TMT, Consumer, Healthcare, Industrial Waste, and Paper & Packaging. At present, he is responsible for setting up new teams, managing existing teams and projects, assuring quality of services, taking client feedback, and providing subject matter expertise.
He holds an MBA in Finance from Institute of Management Technology, India. He has completed training in Foundations in Responsible Investment from PRI Academy, and holds Certificates of Excellence in Six Sigma discipline and Minto Pyramid writing practice.


Trishan Ravihansa
Sr. Associate , Commercial Lending
Trishan is a Senior Associate attached to the Commercial Lending division at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He is currently part of the Commodities, Food & Agriculture sector undertaking covenant monitoring and validation, financial spreading and performing risk raters for a leading European based bank. Prior to Acuity Knowledge Partners, he was a management trainee attached to the Financial Reporting division of a Sri Lankan bank. He also gained exposure from a global audit firm in spheres of corporate taxation and transaction services related advisory.
He is a passed finalist of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) and currently studying for Chartered Financial Analyst Level II examination.


Sayoni Ghosh
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
I have over 8 years of experience in commercial lending domain having experience in credit appraisal, credit validation, real estate mortgage underwriting, asset summary report writing. I have been associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners since January’2017 and currently part of a team handling covenant monitoring of a US based bank. My responsibilities involve spreading financial statements, covenant monitoring, validation and analysis of ratios according to requirement in agreements.
Prior to joining Acuity, I have worked in commercial mortgage underwriting firm with base in US real estate markets. I hold PGDM in Finance from IAMT, Ghaziabad and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Calcutta University.


Chamathka Fonseka
Senior Associate, Commercial Lending
Chamathka is a Senior Associate attached to the Commercial Lending division at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She is currently part of the Transport & Logistics sector, handling a team of analysts, executing credit reviews, covenant monitoring & validation, financial spreading and performing risk raters for a leading European based bank. Prior to Acuity Knowledge Partners, she was a Credit Analyst attached to the Corporate and Investment Bank Department of an US-based Global Investment Bank (local office).
She is a an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) an Affiliate of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (UK), currently reading for a Master’s degree (Economics) in the University of Sri Jayawardenepura.


Wayomi Hemantha (CFA)
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Wayomi has over 10 years of work experience including 7 years in Commercial Lending. Currently she is a Delivery Manager, overlooking a team of analysts responsible for carrying out credit reviews, risk raters, covenant validation and monitoring for the TMT sector of a leading European based bank. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, she worked as a Relationship Manager in the Corporate Banking division of a leading a multinational bank. Wayomi is a CFA Charterholder and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK). She also holds a Master’s degree (Distinction) from the University of West London and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (Finance Special) from the University of Colombo


Ashutosh Gupta
Delivery manager
Ashutosh has 14 years of total work experience in sales enablement and operations management, with expertise in proposal and bid management. In his current role at Acuity Knowledge Partners, he is supporting the RFP/RFI/DDQ processes for the banking sector. Prior to this, he was part of the Sales Enablement team at BNY Mellon India Operations. He holds a Master of Marketing Management from Pune University and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business management with dual specialization in Services and Marketing Management.


Pankhuri Goyal
Associate, DEP Investment Baking
Pankhuri Goyal is part of investment banking team and has over 5 years of work experience in IB support. She has worked on various Investment Banking tasks including company / industry research, detailed company profiles, case studies, benchmarking, valuations, peer analysis among others. She holds experience in multiple sectors such as Consumer/Retail, FIG, Healthcare, and Industrials.
Prior to joining Acuity, she worked with Cians Analytics in their private equity & consulting team and also worked with EY in their RMS team.
She holds a Post Graduate Program in Management with specialization in Finance and a bachelor’s degree in Economics.


Laura Rajapakse
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Laura is a Delivery Lead of the Commercial Lending team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She was previously attached to the corporate finance team of a leading local apparel company for 7+ years. She holds a BBA (International Business and Management) from Northwood University, USA and MBA (Finance) from Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK.


Shivam Gupta
Senior Associate, IB
Shivam has around 5 years of work experience in Acuity investment banking analytics team. He has expertise in Debt capital markets (DCM) domain and provides support on weekly bond market updates, market commentary, covenant comparison, debt maturity profiles, league tables, benchmarking exercises and case studies. He supports the DCM teams of a major European investment bank and has developed good understanding of the investment grade and high yield markets on European Markets.Shivam had done MBA in Financial Markets from GGSIPU University and holds a bachelor’s degree in B.A. (Hons) Business Economics from Delhi University


Saurabh Mahajan
Delivery Manager, IB
Saurabh Mahajan is associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners since 2011 and has experience working with investment bankers across the globe. An expert in Debt capital markets (DCM) and M&A, Saurabh has supported clients on a wide range of products such as Market updates and commentary, capital structure analysis, case studies, valuation, pitch books, company and debt profiles, restructuring and distressed debt, to list a few. He also possesses significant exposure to European markets, having worked with regional clients over the years. Saurabh holds a bachelor’s degree in Technology (B.Tech) from Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, GGSIPU University and PGDM from Asia Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi.


Sreehari Tamaraparani
Delivery Manager, Fund Marketing Services
Sreehari Tamaraparani is a Delivery Manager within the Fund Marketing Services line of business at Acuity Knowledge Partners.
Sreehari has 10 years of sales enablement experience with team management, writing compelling business proposals and content management within the financial services industry. Prior to joining Acuity, he worked at J.P. Morgan as an RFP Writer within the Investor Services line of business. Prior to his stint at J.P. Morgan, Sreehari worked as a Proposal Manager for Bank of America Merrill Lynch within the Global Transaction Services line of business.
Sreehari holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Bangalore University, India and a Post Graduate Certificate in International Business from St. Mary’s University, London, U.K


Prasanna Kumar
Associate Director, Investment Banking
Prasanna Kumar has over 16 years of experience in global capital markets –Investment Banking and Investment Research. His responsibilities include managing one of the IB engagements and relationship, coordinating with staffers and bankers on new initiatives and services, soliciting feedback, working with teams to identify and improve efficiencies and productivity, training team members on complex and value-added analysis, and implementing industry best practices in the Acuity team for IB Analytics.
Prior to taking up the dedicated role with the account in 2014, Prasanna was working as part of Projects and Transition team gained experience in business development and equity research (financial modeling, report writing, relative valuation and precedent transaction analysis, and economic and sector research)


Shiba Kumar Khuntia
Delivery Manager, Investment Research
Shiba Kumar Khuntia is part of the Investment Research team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has spent more than four years in his current role covering the U.S. Industrial Machinery at Acuity Knowledge Partners and currently supports sell-side clients with research assignments including industry research, economic research, thematic reports, and earnings reviews. He holds an MBA in Finance from Rizvi Institute of Management, Mumbai.


Usman Khan
Delivery Manager, IB
Usman has 5 years of experience in the investment banking and financial advisory sector, and currently serves as a Delivery Manager in a large UK-focused investment banking client account. Prior to joining Acuity, he served as an analyst in the capital structure advisory team at HSBC’s investment banking division. He has worked on a variety of corporate finance mandates, apart from typical M&A work, including dividend policy and credit ratings advisory services for clients in life-sciences, commodities, infrastructure, industrial, and services sectors. He is an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi (Class of 2015) and a commerce graduate from the University of Delhi (Class of 2012).


Harshmeen Kaur
Associate, Investment Banking
Harshmeen is an Associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She has good exposure working with investment banks, providing support on precedent transaction comps, trading comps, valuation models, preparing strip profiles and company profiles. She supports global teams of a major European investment bank and has developed good understanding of the corporate finance markets across the EMEA and Asia.
Harshmeen holds an MBA in Finance with specialization in Investment Banking from Chitkara University, Rajpura and completed her B.Sc. (Medical) from Punjabi University, Patiala. She is passionate about dancing and has actively participated in various cultural activities at organizational level.


Piyush Thakur
Assistant Director
Piyush has been with Acuity since 2006 and has experience working on a variety of research and analysis assignments serving Private Equity clients, and has rich exposure to multiple investment philosophies including control investing, distressed-debt, direct lending, credits and loans, real estate, oil & gas among others.
He has extensive experience working on assignments covering the entire life cycle of a private equity investment including target screening, comprehensive financial models, LBO models, waterfall & recovery analysis, sensitivity and scenario building, valuation, portfolio monitoring and similar assignments for clients
Piyush is a qualified Chartered Accountant from ICAI, India and a Bachelor of Commerce


Jarmanjeet Singh
Associate Director
Jarmanjeet Singh has ~15 years of experience supporting various investment banking clients at Acuity Knowledge Partners. In his current role, he is responsible for managing mid-market IB and boutique advisory clients. Jarmanjeet has a keen interest and understanding of Oil & Gas sector and have been regularly working with niche O&G advisors and bankers. He leads teams that work very closely with the senior bankers on live mandates including debt advisory, capital raising and M&A activities. In his prior role at Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked with a US based bulge bracket investment bank where he led sector teams of EMEA region. Jarmanjeet holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Finance from Symbiosis and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce (Hons.) from Delhi University


Deepika Khullar
Delivery Lead
Deepika Khullar has over 7 years of experience in research and consulting industry. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she is a part of the Investment Banking division, currently supporting clients in the Middle East region across areas such as industry and business research and capital markets. During her tenure at Acuity, Deepika has worked with leading investment banks across the US, Middle East and Asia. Her expertise lies in the area of originations support, preparing industry focused-reports, Thematics, IMs etc and has a good understanding of and Islamic finance. She holds a B.Com (Hon.) from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University and an MBA with a specialization in Finance from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute Of Management.


Mohit Jain
Delivery Manager
Mohit Jain is associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners since 2011 and has worked with clients of diversified geographies in investment banking domain during the tenure including North America, Europe, Asia and Middle East. An expert in financial modelling and valuations, Mohit has strong experience working across sectors including TMT, Real Estate, FIG, Consumer and O&G among others. With hands on experience in the M&A domain, he has supported clients on a wide range of products such as financial modelling, case studies, industry research, transactions, comps, pitch books, profiles and deal origination, to list a few. He also possesses significant exposure to Middle East markets and Islamic Finance industry, having worked with regional clients over the years. Mohit holds a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University and an MBA from IILM, New Delhi.


Gopal Venkatesh
Assistant Director, Compliance
Gopal Venkatesh has over 12 years of experience in compliance, having worked for various firms including J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. His expertise spans across the Investment compliance and Change Management. At Acuity Knowledge Partners he is responsible for management support of Investment Compliance Services. Gopal has done his MBA from Bangalore University.


Sidharth Suresh Nair
Delivery Manager, Investment Banking
Sidharth has over 6 years of experience in investment banking and advisory services. He joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in Jul'18 and currently leads a team catering to a boutique advisory firm in the European technology sector. He has previously worked with HSBC Investment Banking in multiple coverage and product teams across geographies, and was a key member of several landmark M&A and IPO transactions. Sidharth holds an MBA in Finance from Symbiosis University, Pune and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Computer Science & Engineering from NIT Calicut.


Binsanlal P J
Delivery Manager, Specialised Solutions
Binsanlal is currently a delivery manager at Acuity Knowledge Partners, with more than 10 years’ experience. He is responsible for preparing macroeconomic outlook reports, credit strategy outlooks, thematic and foreign exchange research reports and writing fund performance commentaries for management discussion and analysis. In his previous assignments, he monitored macroeconomic and policy developments, analysed economies, performed data analysis and interpretation, forecasted and model building, prepared economic and thematic reports, dashboards, and newsletters, and managed research teams and projects. Binsanlal holds a Master’s degree in economics from Madras Christian College and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Mahatma Gandhi University.


Sandeep Ayyappan
Senior Associate
Sandeep is a Senior Associate and subject matter expert for the investment compliance practice. He has over 7 years of experience in financial service industry. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge partners he worked as a senior consultant in Wipro Technologies - Securities & Capital market BA CoE. He was part of the investment compliance and investment book of records team that handled global asset managers. Sandeep was also part of the commodity derivatives trading line of business in the financial service industry.


Amandeep Singh Rekhi
Delivery Manager
Amandeep joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in Feb 2013. During his tenure with Acuity, he has supported and managed several research engagement for diversified clients across varied geographies. He is part of the data analytics, survey programming and end-to-end project management for past 6 years, supporting an industry dedicated employer branding client. Previously, he has supported various market research activities like data collection, quality checking, resource management and cost efficiency for numerous clients.
Prior to Acuity, he has worked with a broking firm, where he was involved in global product arbitrage and identifying the potential opportunity of spread in currencies and metals. Amandeep holds an MBA degree in Finance and Marketing from New Delhi, India and a Bachelor’s degree from Ramjas College, Delhi University, India.


Nikhil Francis
Associate, Investment Banking
Nikhil Francis has over 2.5 years of experience in Investment Banking domain. Currently, he supports the Public Finance team for a U.S. based mid-market investment bank, with a focus on Municipal Finance and Infrastructure - Public Private Partnership(P3) . He holds Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management(PGDFM) and Master’s degree in Commerce with specialization in International Business.


Saswata Mohanty
Assistant Director, Investment Banking
Saswata Mohanty has over 13 years of experience working across different value chain in the Investment Banking domain. Currently, supports Public Finance / Project Finance team, with a focus on Municipal Finance and Infrastructure - Public Private Partnership(P3). He is also responsible for quality check and overall functions of Investment Banking team, for a U.S. based mid-market Investment Bank, in Bangalore. Prior to joining Acuity, he was with Verity Knowledge Solution (affiliate of UBS) for close to 6 years. He holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Finance.


Priyadarshini Elumalai
Analyst, Compliance Ops
Priya has 3 years of experience in Investment Compliance and Collateralized loan obligations, having worked with State Street Corporation prior joining Acuity. At Acuity Knowledge Partners she is part of the Investment Compliance team and specializes in post and pre trade monitoring. Priya holds a bachelor's degree in commerce from Bangalore University.


Akanksha Sah
Senior Associate, IB
Akanksha has around 4 years of work experience in Acuity investment banking analytics teams. In her current role, she supports on all types of alternative funding structures analysis to the leading investment bank in PIPE and RD transaction markets. Prior to this, she provided support in various Investment Banking tasks which involved valuation, peer analysis / company screening, company and industry research, case studies, benchmarking among others with focus towards the healthcare sector. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Management with specialization in Finance and a Bachelor of Commerce degree.


Harsh Gupta
Assistant Director, IB
Harsh has been with Acuity since 2006 and has experience working with investment bankers across the globe with various sector coverage teams like Fintech, Banks, Industrials, Chemicals, Cleantech, Healthcare as well as Equity Capital Markets teams. He has an extensive experience of supporting bankers on Financial models (LBO, DCF, acc/dil, etc), valuations, PIPE offering, SPAC Research, Capital Market products, industry overviews, and idea/peer/target identification. Harsh is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Bachelor of Commerce.


Anish Chopra
Assistant Director
Anish Chopra has over 14 years of experience in investment banking with Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has significant experience in working on power, infrastructure, consumer, healthcare and TMT sectors. In his current role, he is leading a dedicated team supporting Power, Infrastructure and Utilities Group of a global investment bank. He is responsible for managing the team and delivering diverse analysis required during the entire cycle of a transaction including structuring and preparing compete pitch books. He is actively engaged in client interaction, as well as guiding and training juniors. Previously, he supported a European bulge bracket investment bank. Anish holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Finance from Amity Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Guru Nanak Dev University


Champak Patel
Assistant Director, IR
Champak Patel is a part of investment research vertical at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Gurgaon. He has over 11 years of total work experience in equity research & advisory, financial modeling, generating stock ideas, writing research reports, and presenting investment themes to fund managers. Currently, he leads various equity research engagements supporting clients across sectors and geographies. Champak is an MBA in Finance from Institute for Technology and Management, Mumbai and a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering.


Manish Garg
Assistant Director, Private Equity & Consulting
Manish has over 13 years of experience in financial and investment research, with a focus on real estate and distress debt strategies. He holds extensive experience in managing real estate investment projects across the deal pipeline spanning opportunity screening, due diligence support, portfolio monitoring and ad-hoc research projects. He has played an important role in setting up the real estate delivery teams at Acuity. His core areas of work include account management, client relationship, maintaining control over quality and timeliness of team projects.
His previous experience includes working with a commodity research firm and a real estate thematic fund, where he primarily focussed on precious metals’ research, macro-economic studies, real estate sector research, and analyzing real estate companies.
Manish holds an MBA in Finance from ICFAI University and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Rajasthan University.


Tanika Gupta
Delivery Lead, Investment Banking
Tanika is a delivery lead in the Debt Capital Markets practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She has expertise working with investment banks, providing support on weekly bond market updates, bond pricing, covenant comparison, debt maturity profiles, preparing pitch books and capital structure analysis. She supports the global DCM teams of a major European investment bank and has developed good understanding of the investment grade and high yield markets across the US, EMEA and Asia ex-Japan G3 markets.
Tanika holds a MBA in Finance from Jaypee Business School, Noida and earned her B.Com from CSJM University, Kanpur. She is passionate about dancing and has actively participated in various cultural activities at organizational level.


Shreya Kaushal
Analyst, CPB
Shreya has been with Acuity ECM team since June 2020. Her current role requires her to handle assignments for bulge bracket investment banking client team on ECM & Corporate broking projects like industry research, investor targeting, ECM offering related case studies, benchmarking, corporate governance and block updates.
Prior to joining Acuity, she worked as an Audit Associate at Ernst and Young from Aug 2015 – Oct 2016, where she was working parallel with EY US Audit team and was responsible for performing General Audit procedures (Primary and others), preparing audit reports and schedules to be submitted to statutory body (SEC, PCAOB). Shreya holds PG Diploma in Finance from Birla Institute of Management Technology and Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Delhi University.


Rohit Sharma
Delivery Manager, CPB
Rohit Sharma has over 11 years of work experience in investment banking. He is leading ECM and Equity Advisory teams for a UK bulge bracket investment bank from past 9 years. He has a strong hold in ECM related work products which are used for corporate broking, deal origination & execution as well equity linked teams.
He has supported multiple senior investment bankers in preparation of investor decks including investor targeting, benchmarking, potential-blocks / stake sale analysis, deal case studies and sell-side research. In addition, he supports onshore Equity Advisory team catering to Utilities, Industrials and NRG sectors in providing strategic advice on matters related to their client’s market impact and communication. Prior to joining Acuity, he worked with a boutique firm for c.2 years where he was responsible in creating and maintaining financial valuation models with in-depth financial statement analysis. Rohit has cleared CFA Level 1 and holds PG Diploma in Financial Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.


Deepak Garg
Delivery Manager, Investment Banking
Deepak Garg is part of the Investment Banking division at Acuity Knowledge Partners, attached to the Power, Utilities & Infrastructure sector. He joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in Jan’17 and currently leads a team catering to a leading global investment bank. Previously, he has worked with HSBC-IB for more than 2 years and was actively involved in the origination and execution of M&A & ECM deals. Deepak holds an MBA in Finance from IMT Ghaziabad and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering from NIT Kurukshetra.


Umamahesh Poreddi
Senior Associate, Investment Banking
Umamahesh Poreddi has 5+ years of experience working across various roles in the Investment Banking team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. Currently, he supports the Corporate Banking as well as Mergers and Acquisitions teams of a mid-market investment bank based out of the U.S., in prospecting as well as pitching activities focused on various sectors primarily broad industrials and downstream oil & gas markets. He holds an MBA in Finance from Amrita School of Business.


Ankit Mehrotra
Ankit Mehrotra, Associate Director, Investment Banking
Ankit has over 14 years of experience in Consulting and Research. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has led sector and product-specialist pilot teams in Renewable Energy and Environmental Finance, Syndicated Loans - Capital Markets, Sustainable finance, Restructuring, Debt Advisory, Strategy, Corporate Development and M&A Coverage. With McKinsey and Ernst & Young, he has worked on client engagements related to market entry strategy and competitive positioning.
Ankit holds an MBA with a dual specialization in Finance and Marketing from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and earned his B.Com (Hons.) from Delhi University.


Gaurav Jain
Associate Director, Investment Banking
Gaurav Jain over 14 years of experience in investment banking and advisory services. During his tenure with Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked with bulge bracket, regional and boutique banks on multiple sector and coverage teams in US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. Currently, he leads various Investment Banking engagements supporting across Mergers & Acquisitions and Capital Markets teams. Gaurav holds Masters in Business Administration (Finance) and Bachelor in Commerce.


B P Sunil
Associate, Specialised Solutions
Sunil has over 5 years of experience in the structured products space, spanning portfolio management and risk analytics. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has worked on multiple client engagements, supporting both the sell-side and buy-side functions. He previously worked at Thomson Reuters.
Sunil holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor's degree in management from M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore.


Ramakrishna Reddy
Delivery Lead, Specialised Solutions
Ramakrishna has over 6 years of experience in financial services, spanning research and portfolio analytics and risk reporting. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has worked with multiple clients, supporting them on critical tasks including sector research and outlook publication, performance data monitoring, attribution analysis, and factor-based risk/return analysis.
Ramakrishna holds a master’s degree in management from Christ University and a bachelor’s degree from Aurora’s Technological & Research Institute.


Vikram Kumar R
Delivery Manager, Specialised Solutions
Vikram is a management postgraduate with over 10 years of work experience. At Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity), he has worked with two bulge-bracket sell-side clients in managing their bespoke data management, research and publication requirements for US and EMEA securitisation markets. Prior to Acuity, he worked with Accenture Credit Services (formerly Zenta Knowledge Services Pvt Ltd) and Silverskills Pvt Ltd on US commercial lending-related bespoke services.
Vikram completed a Post Graduate Program in Management (Finance and Marketing) at Indus Business Academy and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Loyola College.


Rekha Narasimhan
Senior Associate, Compliance
Rekha Narasimhan has over 10 years of industry experience in the area of Risk and Compliance. Her expertise spans across Anti Money Laundering compliance and Electronic Communication Surveillance. She is associated with Acuity for the last two years. Prior to joining Acuity, she was associated with Goldman Sachs and HCL Capital Market Services. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration, specializing in finance. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she is part of Corporate and Forensic Compliance team and specializes in Electronic Communication Surveillance.


Asha Rakesh Maniar
Senior Associate, Compliance
Asha Rakesh Maniar has 7+ years of experience in compliance and has been associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners for about a year. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners she worked as a senior analyst with Goldman Sachs – PWM and Forensic compliance. At Acuity Knowledge Partners she is part of the corporate and forensic compliance team where she monitors electronic communication and performs trading surveillance for a client. Asha holds a MBA degree from the ICFAI Business School Hyderabad.


Anshul Kulshrestha
Anshul Kulshrestha, Delivery Manager, PEC
Anshul Kulshrestha joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in 2012 and has been a part of the firm’s Private Equity and Consulting Vertical since. His current role involves managing multiple PE and fund-of-funds clients.
He has extensive experience across a broad range of private equity and hedge fund services, including fundraising pitchbook, investment due diligence, investment memorandums, fund cash flow modeling, portfolio monitoring and fund revaluation modeling.
Anshul holds Post Graduate in Business Management with a specialization in Finance and Marketing from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad


Faisal Riyaz
Assistant Director, IB
Faisal Riyaz manages investment banking teams at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Beijing. He has over 10 years of experience in financial research with a focus on the Chinese capital markets. Faisal is also actively involved in knowledge management and quality control of deliverables. Prior to joining Acuity Beijing, he worked as an analyst for a team supporting a large European investment bank.


Navneet Kumar
Delivery Manager, Business Research
Navneet Kumar joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in April 2010. During his tenure with Acuity, he has supported and managed several research engagement for investment banking and consulting clients across varied geographies. He is part of the consulting practice for past 5 years, supporting an industry dedicated consulting client. Previously, he has supported various investment banking clients in financial & operational analysis, valuation analysis, investment screening and M&A Analysis. Navneet has worked on diverse industries including TMT, Energy and Power, Oil & gas, Retail, and Metal & Mining.
Prior to Acuity, he has worked with a boutique investment-banking firm, where he was involved in identifying the potential opportunity for the existing clients and creating pitch books. Navneet holds an MBA degree in Finance from New Delhi Institute of Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Kurukshetra University, India.


Jalaj Jonker
Delivery Manager, Compliance Analytics
Jalaj heads the Compliance Analytics team, with experience in anti-money laundering, customer due diligence, and market abuse prevention. He has worked in the areas of compliance, trading surveillance, and financial crime and information security and risk analytics. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) degree in Electronics and Communication.


Pankaj Jha
Delivery Lead, Compliance
Pankaj Jha has 9 years of experience in compliance and has been associated with Acuity Knowledge Partners for 7 months. His expertise spans across the risk and compliance sector, focusing on compliance reviews of marketing/advertising materials, AML and Email Surveillance. At Acuity Knowledge Partners he is part of the central compliance team and specializing in marketing material review. Pankaj is a graduate in B.Com (Hons) from Delhi University


Avinash Singh
Delivery Manager, Consulting
Avinash Singh is a Delivery Manager within Consulting practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners, and has about 10 years of experience in Private equity and financial services domains. He currently assists on a diverse set of financial and business research projects including target & buyer screening, company valuation, financial statement analysis, debt covenant analysis, trading & transaction comparable, portfolio performance analysis and due diligence, among others
Prior to his role at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Avinash worked at a KPO, where his responsibilities largely included supporting investment banks and managing clients and other research engagements. Avinash holds an MBA degree in Finance from Karnataka State University, India and Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Jiwaji University, India.


Sunny Mehta
Assistant Director, Consulting
Sunny started his career with Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity) in 2007. During his tenure with Acuity, he has supported and managed several research engagements for consulting, private equity and investment banking clients in a number of geographies.
Sunny has been part of the Consulting practice for the past five years. His current role involves providing support to consulting clients on a wide array of strategic and business research areas, including competitive benchmarking, market opportunity assessment, M&A analysis and strategic evaluation of an investment opportunity. Sunny holds an MBA in Finance from New Delhi Institute of Management and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce from University of Delhi, India.


Chetan Anand
Assistant Director, Consulting
Chetan Anand has over eight years of experience in diverse areas, such as consulting research, private equity, and investment research. His expertise spans across several research themes including financial and operational analysis, business strategy, valuation analysis, investment screening, and due diligence studies, among others. At Acuity Knowledge partners, he is a part of Consulting practice, supporting a research engagement for a consulting client.
Prior to Acuity, he worked with a start-up firm, where he was involved in identifying and exploring various investment and financing opportunities for the company. Chetan holds a Bachelor’s degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India.


Jeetendra Prakash
Assistant Director, Investment Research
Jeetendra Prakash has over 10 years of work experience in investment research, with a focus on oil and gas and real estate. He currently supports a large European asset manager. The process involves research on potential acquisitions of real estate assets and also supports a distressed debt fund. In addition, he is also actively involved in training and quality control of deliverables. He holds an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce.


Ganesh Hebbar
Delivery Lead, Compliance
Ganesh Hebbar has over 9 years of experience in compliance, having worked for various firms including Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale. His expertise spans across the risk and compliance sector, focusing on know your customer (KYC) and risk management. Ganesh has done his MBA from Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore.


Ritika Sharma
Senior Associate, Commercial Lending
Ritika Sharma has over a decade of experience in credit analysis. Her area of expertise is analysing financial statements of new and existing corporate borrowers to determine their financial strength and creditworthiness in line with bank’s risk policy. Currently, she supports the commercial underwriting team of a US-based bank, focusing on gathering, analysing and evaluating risk exposure data through appropriate risk documentation. She holds an MBA in Finance from Kurukshetra University.


Vivek Mishra
Senior Associate, Business Research
Vivek has over four years of experience in delivering various market research projects by implementing secondary research, market forecasting, and data skills. He is graduated in Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Anand Engineering College, Agra. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he works in Mining & Metals industry, with special focus on analyzing 'Coal’ and 'Uranium' as a commodity across the globe.


Khushboo Agarwal
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Khushboo Agarwal is part of the Commercial Lending team at Acuity Knowledge Partners, primarily responsible for conducting credit reviews for a leading US bank. She has over 8 years of work experience. Prior to Acuity, she worked with a leading credit rating agency in India and was engaged in credit risk rating of large companies, including financial projections and compiling outlook summaries. She has also worked in a leading international bank, supporting the Credit Analysis and Hedge Fund Portfolio Monitoring segments. Khushboo is a CFA charterholder and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.


Arjun Prasad
Delivery Manager, Investment Research
Arjun has over five years of experience in fixed income research, supporting Europe- and US-based CLO managers by identifying suitable investment opportunities after screening and analysing the credit quality of high-yield European and US issuers. His analysis has helped clients to successfully roll out multiple warehouses. He holds an MBA (Finance) and a Bachelor of Engineering degree.


Aditya Arora
Assistant Director, Specialised Solutions
Aditya has over 9 years of experience in securitisation spreads across modelling, valuation, portfolio management and risk analytics. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he is responsible for managing and developing our Structured Finance offerings. Aditya started his career as a Fixed Income Analyst and has a proven record of setting up and up-scaling analyst teams, facilitating knowledge transfer from onshore locations and enabling development of tech solutions. He is an alumnus of BlackRock, Deloitte and UBS. He is a CFA Charterholder and also holds a master's degree in Management and a bachelor's degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management.


Amit Mehndiratta
Delivery Lead, Survey Programming
Amit Mehndiratta is the Delivery Lead in Survey Programming practice with overall experience of 10 years. He has been a part of this organization for last 2.5 years now. He has worked in various domains of market research like Quality Assurance, Client services, Project management, Research and development etc. Amit has previously worked with Toluna India Pvt Ltd and Knowledge Excel Services


Dhruv Gupta
Associate, IB MAP
Dhruv Gupta has over +3 years of experience in Investment Banking and Consulting industry. At Acuity, he is a part of the Investment Banking team with special focus on Technology, Media and Telecom sector. He has prior experience working with KPMG and holds a PGDM in finance from Birla Institute of Technology Management. Dhruv is a CFA level 1 certified professional.”


Abhishek Bhatia
Assistant Director
Abhishek is an Asst. Director with Acuity Knowledge Partners and has over 15 years of experience across multiple service lines, including market research, consulting and data analytics. He is an expert in market research and played a pivotal role in setting up different market research services in Acuity. He is leading multiple client engagements and an expert at setting up and fine-tuning processes, maintaining control over quality and timeliness of projects.
He joined Acuity in 2006 and his key focus areas include multiple accounts management, client relationship, providing oversight to the team's day-to-day operations, team staffing as well as training and development. He has extensive experience of working across multiple service lines and an expert at transitioning and implementing processes.
Apart from managing execution teams and client relationships, his responsibilities include scoping, monitoring and escalation management, resource mentoring and planning, trouble shooting and business development.
Abhishek has previously worked with Hewitt Associates and Annik Technologies (now Capgemini)


Devduni Wijesekara
Delivery Manager , Commercial Lending
Devduni Wijesekara is a Delivery Manager in the Commercial Lending team. She has 7 years of banking experience, including corporate credit exposure. Devduni holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Pune and an MBA from the University of Colombo. She also holds banking and finance-related diplomas from the Institute of Bankers of Sri Lanka.


Usman Ahmad
Chief Data Scientist
Usman is the Chief Data Scientist at Acuity, responsible for AI/ML strategy and implementation for key client relationships. He joined Acuity in 2018 and has over 10 years of experience in delivering analytical and risk management solutions to global capital markets participants using state-of-the-art platforms. Prior to joining Acuity, Usman worked at Lloyds Bank, Goldman Sachs and UBS in front-office and middle-office functions. He holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from Imperial College London


Deepak Stephen
Head of Data Science Operations
Deepak is the Head of Data Science Operations at Acuity, responsible for overall practice governance, business development and talent management. He has been with the firm for 9 years and has 16 years of experience in delivering cross-functional research and analytics outcomes to global buy-side and sell-side firms. Prior to joining Acuity in 2011, he worked at Genpact, RR Donnelley and Sharekhan (BNP Paribas) in their capital markets businesses. He holds an MBA in Finance from EMPI Business School, New Delhi


Ankit Agrawal
Delivery lead, Investment research
Ankit Agrawal has 7 years of experience in fixed income credit research, with a focus on banks and sovereigns. In his time at Acuity, Ankit has worked with three of largest buy sides firms based in Europe and US by helping them make investment decision by preparing detailed credit reviews – including writing opinionated investment notes and building detailed financial models. Currently, he is supporting a UK-based asset manager engaged in sustainable investing and provides opinionated ESG driven credit research notes. Ankit holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance).


Sharmi Basu
Delivery Lead, Investment Research
Sharmi Basu is a management post-graduate with over 6 years of work experience in fixed income research with a focus on Telecom, Automobile and Retail sectors. Over the course of this time, she has worked for three European asset manager and one US based hedge fund manager, helping them make investment decision by preparing detailed credit reviews – including detailed forecast based FIC models with opinionated investment notes on corporates. Currently, she is working for a UK-based asset manager engaged in sustainable investing and provides opinionated ESG driven credit research notes. Sharmi holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and a Master of Science (Business).


Tyra De Silva
Analyst, Specialised Solutions
Tyra De Silva is part of the Specialised Solutions team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. She supports a benchmark index provider by conducting research on emerging market bond liquidity. She also contributes to various ad-hoc tasks varying from investment research to in-house python projects. She has prior experience in developing economic analyses, financial advising and M&A. Tyra graduated cum laude from The University of Tampa with a degree in Economics and a minor in Finance.


Sriram Kovil
Associate Director, Specialised Solutions
Sriram Kovil leads the Mathematical Modelling sub-group under the Specialised Solutions practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He primarily works with banks and asset managers, providing support for derivatives pricing/valuation, model research/enhancements, financial market risk analysis, model risk management and model validation. He has over 11 years of experience across service lines, including risk analytics, model validation, data analytics, statistical modelling and software development. Sriram holds a master’s degree in Operations Research from Columbia University, with a specialisation in Financial Engineering


Shashank Sharma
Associate, Business Research
Shashank Sharma has over two years of experience in delivering various market research projects by implementing secondary research, market forecasting, and data skills. He holds Master of Business Administration in Oil & Gas Management from University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES). He is graduated in Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from AKTU, Lucknow. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he works in Mining & Metals industry, with special focus on analyzing ‘Nickel’ as a commodity across the globe.


Jitendra Verma
Delivery Lead, Data Analytics
Jitendra Verma has over a decade of experience in market research; at Acuity, his role is versatile ranging from data management to reporting, but primary focus is in marketing analytics engagement. His expertise includes many verticals like Banking, Pharma, Retail, Telecom and IT primarily in predicting consumers’ psychology and brand behavior. He holds bachelor degree in engineering, IT.


Raghu Patale
Delivery Manager, PEC BR
Raghu Patale is a delivery manager in life science & health care practice. He has 10 years of experience in healthcare research as competitive intelligence and strategy consultant. He offers scientific, clinical and commercial insights on pharmaceutical and healthcare requests.
Previous to this, Raghu was Group Manager leading Pharma Practice at Evalueserve. He holds a Master's degree in Pharmaceutical sciences from NIPER


Sonia Gurung
Associate, Business Research
Sonia Gurung has over two years of work experience in secondary research, market forecast, report writing, company profiling and data analysis. She holds a Master of Business Administration in Finance & Analytics from DIT University and Bachelor of Science in CBZ from D.B.S College Dehradun. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she works in Mining & Metals industry, with special focus on analyzing 'iron ore' as a commodity across the globe.


Pooja Golait
Associate, Equity Research P&T Team
Pooja Golait started her career with Acuity Knowledge Partners in 2018. She currently works with P&T Team. She holds a Post Graduate in Business Management with a specialization in Finance from Christ University, Bangalore. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Computer Science) from NMIMS University, Mumbai.


Sanjiv Singh
Assistant Director
Sanjiv Singh has over 12 years of experience in compliance, having worked for various firms including J.P. Morgan and AXA . His expertise spans across the Investment compliance and Change Management. At Acuity Knowledge Partners he is responsible for management support of Investment Compliance Services. Sanjiv has done his MBA from IIPM Pune.


Vandana Ahuja
Delivery Manager
Vandana Ahuja is part of the Private Equity and Consulting team in Acuity Knowledge Partners, Gurgaon. She has over 9 years of experience in Business research and consulting.
She has diverse experience of working with top consulting companies across various industries and geographies. She has managed and executed various consulting projects involving competitor analysis, industry studies, company profiling, survey analysis and strategic recommendations, trend analysis, verbatim and sentiment analysis. She has managed various consulting clients.
She holds a degree in Master of Business Administration (M.B.A) with specialization in Finance and Bachelor of Arts (B.A) in Economics.
The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable contributions from Chhavi Sharma, Pallavi Chatterjee, Dushyant Sharma and Swathi Jayan.


Faahika Fakir
Assistant Director, Fund Marketing Services
Faahika Fakir has 8 years of work experience. At Acuity, she heads delivery of several client accounts. She specialises in digital marketing sectors such as marketing automation, content management, and web analytics, and in account management, client engagement and project management of mid-size to large teams that provide end-to-end support to global asset managers on a variety of digital marketing activities.She holds a Bachelors in Computing and is a qualified Project Management Professional.


Ashok Navaneethan
Delivery Lead , Commercial Lending
Ashok is part of the Commercial Lending team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over two years of onshore experience in lending, together with experience in finance and accounting. Previously, he was a credit analyst at a local commercial bank. He holds a BABM degree from the Cardiff Metropolitan University and is an Associate Member of CIMA (UK).


Shekhar Mishra
Delivery Manager, Data Analytics
“Shekhar has over 10 years of experience in market research. He is leading multiple client engagements across market research value chain. He is also actively involved in innovation and data analytics endeavors. Prior to Acuity Knowledge Partners he worked at WNS Global Services. Shekhar holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology.”


Nishith Sen
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Nishith Sen has 10 years of work experience. He initially supported Acuity’s Investment Banking vertical, and then moved to Commercial Lending (4 years). He has been part of the RECM team for the past 2 years. Prior to Acuity, he was with Cognizant Technology Solutions for more than a year.


Anithavani Devaraj
Delivery Lead, Commercial Lending
Anithavani Devaraj has been part of Acuity Knowledge Partners’ RECM team since 2015. Prior to this, she spent 4 years at Accenture Credit Services. She has 9 years of experience in commercial real estate cash flow modelling, valuation analysis, lease abstraction, loan origination and detailed loan underwriting.


Aman Singh
Senior Associate, Business Research
Aman Singh, in his current role at Acuity Knowledge Partners supports a global consulting firm by providing qualitative research support. Prior to this, he worked for a consulting firm and was responsible for conducting strategic research for Upstream clients. He holds an Engineering degree in Oil and Gas Upstream operations from University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (class of 2017)


Pranaypushp Shrivastava
Delivery Lead, FMS
Pranay is a fund marketing professional with over six years of experience in the capital markets services industry. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he supervises functional teams supporting RFP/RFI/DDQ and consultant database processes at the keystroke level, and is engaged in implementing efficiency improvements and mentoring. Prior to this, he worked in S&P Global Market Intelligence’s research division, analysing real-time market data on ownership of globally listed companies. Pranay holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Gujarat University, India, and a Master of Business Administration with a specialisation in Finance from Christ University, India.


Megha Rathi
Delivery Lead, FMS
Megha has over eight years of experience in regulatory/client reporting, commentary writing and RFP writing. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she supports fund marketing services for the asset management industry. She holds a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Commerce from Pune University.


Charanjit Singh
Head of ESG Research
Charanjit Singh joined Acuity Knowledge Partners in October 2019 as the head of ESG Research. He has more than 20 years of experience in investment research and advisory, with a focus on ESG, climate change and clean energy. Previously, he was a Senior ESG Strategist with HSBC and the co-head of its India Onshore Research Centre. During his tenure of over 11 years at the bank, Charanjit was instrumental in building and leading three sector teams for the bank’s global research business in India.
Charanjit has been rated in the Asia Money survey amongst the top five analysts in India/ Asia during 2012-15, for his sector coverage. He has been voted in the EXTEL survey during 2010-14 and in 2017 for Climate Change and SRI research. A research report co-authored by Charanjit received the first-runner up prize at the FARSIGHT Awards from London Accord in 2012. Charanjit is also a recipient of Chevening Fellowship from the British Government. He has also been a consultant on assignments funded by DFID, CIDA, and the World Bank.


Archana Shankar
Associate, Compliance
Archana has 4+ years of experience in Investment compliance, having worked with WNS Global services before joining Acuity Knowledge Partners. Her interest lies in the field of Investment mandate monitoring. She completed her MBA in Financial Management from Christ University.


Prachurjya Bharaly
Assistant Director, Investment Banking
Prachurjya has over 13 years of experience in investment banking with Acuity Knowledge Partners. At Acuity, he has led sector and product-specialist pilot teams in Metals & Mining, Real Estate, Debt Capital Markets (DCM) and Rating Advisory. Within DCM and Rating Advisory, he has been instrumental in helping the clients achieve over 30% in annual savings on both regular and adhoc tasks through standardization of the outputs and deployment of our proprietary BEAT tools. Prachurjya holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering.


Mohak Mantri
Associate Director, Commercial Lending
Mohak is part of the Commercial Lending Projects and Transition team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over 13 years of experience in banking operations in consumer and wholesale lending portfolios across small businesses, middle markets and syndicated and large corporates. Mohak also has expertise in loan operations consulting and operations, and risk-based control testing and monitoring. He holds an MBA in International Business Strategy from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi.


Pankaj Bukalsaria
Associate Director
Pankaj has over fifteen years of experience in investment banking. He oversees multiple client engagements on front office research and analytics support across Corporate Finance / M&A, Capital markets, Restructuring and Debt advisory. He has significant experience in working on Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining, Fintech and FIG sectors. A significant aspect of his work involves white boarding client requirements, proposing solutions and onboarding and managing client relationships. Prior to Acuity, he worked with UBS IB offshore team in India, where he led the set up and transition of Global Energy team for UBS and subsequently went on to lead the Media & Telecom team. A father to two lovely kids, Pankaj is an avid reader and enjoys watching movies in his spare time. He holds an MBA from IMT, Ghaziabad and is a Bachelor of Commerce from the Delhi University.


Rajeev Sinha
Assistant Director, Fund Marketing Services, Acuity Knowledge Partners
Rajeev Sinha is part of the Fund Marketing Services practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. In this role, he is primarily responsible for the management and oversight of dedicated RFP and DDQ teams that work with leading global asset management firms. Rajeev has over 10 years of sales-enablement experience. Prior to joining Acuity, he worked in various roles at J.P. Morgan, including those of a proposal writer and knowledge manager. Rajeev has also worked as an account manager for clients’ dedicated RFP teams at Genpact and Copal Amba. He started his career as a research analyst covering the private equity market at RR Donnelley. Rajeev holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Banaras Hindu University, India, and a Master of Business Administration with a specialisation in finance from ICFAI University, India.


Jalaj Jonker
Delivery Manager, Compliance Analytics
Jalaj heads the Compliance Analytics team, with experience in anti-money laundering, customer due diligence, and market abuse prevention. He has worked in the areas of compliance, trading surveillance, and financial crime and information security and risk analytics. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) degree in Electronics and Communication.


Sudhir Shetty
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Sudhir has over 12 years of experience working with leading global organisations in the credit-rating and commercial-lending domains. Currently, he is part of a commercial-lending team that works with a large European bank on covenant validation, financial spreading and the drafting of credit-risk scores and credit reviews. Prior to this, he supported the commercial-lending team of a large UK-based bank and was responsible for communicating with the origination teams, writing annual and interim credit reviews, responding to risk queries and performing post-credit-sanction formalities. Prior to joining Acuity, Sudhir worked for a leading rating company and supported the US public-finance domain, both in his individual capacity and in the capacity of a team lead. Sudhir holds a Master in Commerce from Mumbai University, an MBA (finance) from SIES (Mumbai) and an Accounting Technician degree from ICAI.


Jarmanjeet Singh
Associate Director
Jarmanjeet Singh has over 14 years of experience supporting various investment banking clients at Acuity Knowledge Partners. In his current role, he is responsible for managing mid-market IB and boutique advisory clients. He leads teams that work very closely with the senior bankers on live mandates including debt advisory, capital raising and M&A activities. In his prior role at Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked with the US based bulge bracket investment bank where he led sector teams of EMEA region. Jarmanjeet holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Finance from Symbiosis and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce (Hons.) from Delhi University


Sreenath Kesavan
Assistant Director, Investment Research
Sreenath Kesavan is part of the Investment Research team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has spent more than six years in his current role covering the U.S. steel industry at Acuity Knowledge Partners and currently supports sell-side clients with research assignments including thematic reports, economic updates, data research, and earnings review. He holds an MBA in Finance from ICFAI University, Dehradun.


Ankush Shaw
Delivery Lead, Investment Research
Ankush Shaw has 8+ years of experience in investment research with a focus on biopharmaceutical services, healthcare information technology, emerging markets, utilities as well as mutual funds and ETFs. Currently, he is working with a US based sell-side research firm, engaged in detailed financial modeling, news flow tracking and writing opinionated investment notes with a focus on equity research. Previously, he has worked with UK based buy-side firms, and a US based sell-side firm, providing actionable investment insights throughout the overall investment research value chain. He specializes in preparing detailed financial models, writing thematic as well as focused investment notes, tracking key news flow and maintaining databases. Ankush holds Masters in Business Administration (Finance) and Bachelor in Commerce (Hons.) (Finance).


Neha Agrawal
Assistant Director
Neha Agrawal has over 13 years of experience in investment banking and consulting. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she leads various Middle Eastern Investment Banking engagements supporting across Capital Markets, Islamic Finance, Strategy, and proprietary investments. During her tenure with Acuity knowledge partners, has worked with consulting firms, boutique advisory firms and leading investment banks across the US, Middle East and Africa. Previously she worked with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where she handled various roles across the investment banking division. Neha holds an MBA from ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad and is a Graduate in Science (Hons).


Gopi Krishna
Delivery Lead
Gopi Krishna Tamraparni is a part of Investment Research team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over 8 years of experience in research and currently supports a sell-side research client covering U.S. Oil & Gas sector. Gopi holds Masters in Business Administration (Finance) and Bachelors in Mechanical engineering.


Kumail Jillisger
Associate Director, Head of Financial Crimes Compliance
As Head of Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) vertical, Kumail oversees the engagement management and delivery framework for Due Diligence operations, Transaction Monitoring and AML Analytics. He is also responsible to strengthen the vertical by recommending optimal business solution to clients and technology oversight for FCC vertical. Kumail has 25+ years of prolific experience in KYC/AML operations, back office operations, process migration, business analysis and system implementation, process deliveries and team building. He puts strong focus on identifying risk in a process and believes in leveraging his IT know-how for automating operations.


Madhav Garg
Senior Associate, Investment Banking
Madhav Garg has over 5 years of experience working across various roles in the Investment Banking team. Currently, he supports in the debt capital markets team for a U.S. based investment bank, with a focus on issuance and re-issuance of high-yield debt across various sectors. He is CFA Level 2 cleared and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration in Finance.


Huan LI
Associate
Huan Li started with Acuity Knowledge Partners since 2016, he focuses on serving consulting clients while also supported private equity and investment banking assignments. He covered different sectors such as consumer, FIGs, Industrials, and TMT, etc. Prior to Acuity Knowledge Partners, he worked at E-house Group, a real estate brokerage and China Minsheng Banking, a commercial bank in China. Huan graduated from Peking University.


Rathnakala Kumaragurunathan
Associate Director, Investment Research
With 12+ years of experience in investment research, Rathnakala currently heads the Training and Knowledge Management function in the Colombo office, responsible for skills development and the in-house continuous education programme. She also oversees 25+ analysts in the Investment Research vertical. She is an active member of the university outreach programme and has been invited a number of times to deliver guest lectures at local universities and professional bodies such as CIMA and ACCA. She invests heavily in junior talent development and takes a systematic approach to building high-performing teams. Rathnakala holds a BSc in Economics and Management from the LSE (UK) and is a respected member of the ACCA (UK), CIMA (UK) and CPA (Australia).


Sharmi Basu
Delivery Lead
Sharmi Basu is a management post-graduate with over 6 years of work experience in fixed income research with a focus on Telecom, Automobile and Retail sectors. Over the course of this time, she has worked for three European asset managers and one US based hedge fund manager, helping them make investment decision by preparing detailed credit reviews – including detailed forecast based FIC models with opinionated investment notes on corporates. Currently, she is working for a UK-based asset manager engaged in sustainable investing and provides opinionated ESG driven credit research notes. Sharmi holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and a Master of Science (Business).


Ankit Agrawal
Delivery Lead
Ankit Agrawal has 7 years of experience in fixed income credit research, with a focus on banks and sovereigns. In his time at Acuity, Ankit has worked with three of largest buy sides firms based in Europe and US by helping them make investment decision by preparing detailed credit reviews – including writing opinionated investment notes and building detailed financial models. Currently, he is supporting a UK-based asset manager engaged in sustainable investing and provides opinionated ESG driven credit research notes. Ankit holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance).


Ankita Jhawar, CFA
Assistant Director, Portfolio Research, Operations and Risk
Ankita Jhawar has over 8 years of work experience in portfolio research and operations. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, she supports the investment marketing group of one of the largest global asset managers in client reporting activities. Prior to this, she provided support as a buy-side fixed income product specialist for multi-sector fixed income mandates. She is an alumnus of Goldman Sachs and D. E. Shaw & Co. She is also a CFA Charterholder and holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance and a Bachelor of Economics degree.


Shankar Shivakumar, CFA
Associate Director, Specialised Solutions
Shankar is responsible for implementing strategic initiatives at Acuity Knowledge Partners’ Specialised Solutions division and also heads data management operations for a large hedge fund. He has over 14 years of experience in private equity, investment banking, investment research and corporate finance. Shankar is a CFA Charterholder and holds a Master of Business Administration degree.


Stevi Joseph
Associate Director, Portfolio Research, Operations and Risk
Stevi heads the Portfolio Research, Operations and Risk practice at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has over 12 years of experience in the investment management industry across portfolio analytics, manager research, investment reporting and data management. He has extensive experience in building bespoke tools for asset managers for their analytics and reporting purposes. Stevi holds a Master of Science degree in Physics.


Ye Ji
Associate
Ye Ji presently serves as research associate in Acuity investment Beijing research team. She has over 4 years of total work experience with a focus on financial analysis, newsletter & presentation materials making and company comparable & recent transaction comps analysis. Also conduct desk research mainly in Internet, consumer retail, pharmaceutical industries. Previously served as research associate and team leader of an Investment Banking research team, supported a leading global investment bank and responsible for quality check and client communication. Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting and Information system), University of Auckland


Ying Wang
Associate
Ying Wang is an associate of a hedge fund team at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Beijing Office, and has around four years of work experience with a focus on company valuation, financial modelling, industry and market research. Prior to joining Acuity, Ying gained experience in asset management. Ying holds double master degrees - Master in Management and MSc in Corporate Finance & Banking, Grande École Programme, from EDHEC Business School.


Manish Jha
Delivery Lead,Investment Research
Manish Jha is a part of Investment Research team at Acuity Knowledge Partners. He has around seven years of work experience supporting global sell-side clients on Equity Research including building financial models, initiating coverage reports, thematic reports, ad-hoc data research, and earnings review. Manish holds Post Graduate Diploma in Management with specialization in Finance from IIIT, Pune.


Mrutyunjay Panigrahi
Delivery Manager, Investment Banking
Mrutyunjay Panigrahi is part of the Investment Banking division at Acuity Knowledge Partners, attached to the Energy & Natural Resources sector. He has spent more than 11 years at Acuity Knowledge Partners and currently leads a team catering to a leading global investment bank. He holds an MBA in Finance from Utkal University.


Sunil Chippalakatti
Delivery Manager
Sunil Chippalakatti has 13 years of experience in Anti Money Laundering (AML) and KYC due diligence, having previously worked for JPMorgan India and Tata Consultancy Services. His expertise spans across the risk and compliance, focusing on transition, set up and managing KYC and AML/CFT operations. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he manages two due diligence engagements. Sunil has done MBA from M P Birla Institute of Management, Bangalore


Swati Gera
Senior Associate
Swati Gera has 5.6 years of experience in AML Analytics and KYC due diligence, having previously worked for Infosys. Her expertise are in enabling financial institutions evaluate the transaction monitoring models with the objective of improving the effectiveness of alerts generated. She also has extensive experience in performing risk reviews of at the time of onboarding customers & vendors. Swati has done her B.Tech (Computer Science) from Lingayas University, Faridabad.


Anmol Jain
Analyst, Fund Marketing Services
Anmol Jain is a key member of the Fund Marketing Services division at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Bangalore. He has close to 1.5 years of work experience in the industry, with work related to investment commentary writing and credit analysis. He is a B.Com. (Hons.) graduate from Delhi University and a CFA Level 2 candidate, with keen interest in areas such as portfolio management, attribution commentary writing and investment analysis.


Abhisek Sasmal
Assistant Director
Abhisek Sasmal has over 10 years of work experience in equity and macro research, financial and credit risk modelling. Currently he is supporting the banking coverage of a European sell side specialists in financial services. Prior to that, he supported a European buy side client mainly on the diversified financial sector. Before joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he used to work with some leading domestic sell side firms in India on diversified sectors.


Priyanka Gupta
Delivery Lead, Private Equity
Priyanka Gupta has 7 years of experience in ESG and market research roles. She has worked extensively in conducting ESG Research in one of the top market research firms in Gurgaon. She is a Certified Research Expert and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Human Resource) and a Bachelor’s degree in Technology (Computer Science)


Amit Kumar Mishra
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Amit has over 8 years of experience in leading teams in the Financial Reporting, Investment Research and Consulting, and Commercial Lending domains. His expertise spans SEC reporting, regulatory reporting, credit appraisal, investment research report writing and mutual fund rating.
At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he is part of the Commercial Lending team, focusing on analysing companies in diverse sectors such as oil and gas, commercial and industrial, not-for-profit and business services. Amit holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management from Ishan Institute of Management & Technology, Greater Noida, and a B.Com from Gorakhpur University.


Vivek Krishna
Assistant Director, Commercial Lending
Vivek has over 13 years of experience in commercial credit underwriting, credit portfolio monitoring and corporate and investment banking. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he leads a service delivery team managing end-to-end credit portfolio monitoring of C&I and specialised lending portfolio of a large banking client, with earlier stints as Credit Manager (wholesale originations) and Senior Equipment Finance Underwriter. He is experienced in conducting in-depth credit reviews, stressed assets quality reviews and event/regulatory impact analysis. Vivek also holds strong domain knowledge in global healthcare and oil and gas industries. Prior to Acuity, he has worked in financial/credit research roles with firms including Citibank, Guggenheim Partners and ICICI Bank. Vivek is a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). He also holds an MBA with specialisation in Corporate Finance and Investment Banking from ITM Business School.


Narayan Somani
Associate Director, Commercial Lending
Narayan has over 12 years of experience in credit analysis covering multiple asset classes, including loans (bilateral and syndicated), fixed income securities and project finance for a diverse clientele comprising corporate and investment banks, commercial banks, asset managers, and hedge funds. At Acuity Knowledge Partners, he leads several delivery teams supporting banks in credit analysis of syndicated and middle-market exposures. Narayan has expertise in loan process consulting and support, end-to-end loan underwriting and credit monitoring, including process transformation. He is well-versed in regulatory requirements in the US and Europe with respect to loan portfolio monitoring. Narayan holds an MBA with specialisation in Finance from ICFAI Business School and B.Com (Hons.) in Accountancy.


Dilinie Gunathilaka
Delivery Manager, Commercial Lending
Dilinie Gunathilaka is a Delivery Manager at Acuity Knowledge Partners’ Commercial Lending team in Colombo. Previously at Acuity, she was an Analyst in equity research and fixed income research. She has over 13 years of experience and holds a MSc in Management (Finance, Special) from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. She is also an Associate Member of CIMA UK and a CFA Level III candidate.


Narendra Mendru
Delivery Lead, Compliance Operations
Narendra Mendru has 5 years of experience in Trade surveillance. He worked with various firms, including Bank of America and HSBC. In his current role, He is working as delivery lead with Acuity knowledge partners and supports clients as SME in trade surveillance. He holds MBA degree, specialized in finance from MATS Institute of Management, Bangalore.


Kumail Jillisger
Associate Director, Head of Financial Crimes Compliance
As Head of Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) vertical, Kumail oversees the engagement management and delivery framework for Due Diligence operations, Transaction Monitoring and AML Analytics. He is also responsible to strengthen the vertical by recommending optimal business solution to clients and technology oversight for FCC vertical. Kumail has 25+ years of prolific experience in KYC/AML operations, back office operations, process migration, business analysis and system implementation, process deliveries and team building. He puts strong focus on identifying risk in a process and believes in leveraging his IT know-how for automating operations.


Isha Vyas
Delivery Lead, Investment Research
Isha Vyas is a management post-graduate with over 5 years of work experience in investment research. She has experience in building and updating FIC models and is also well-versed in writing opinionated investment notes on corporates and banks. Currently, she is working for a private banking division of a large Switzerland-based bank and provides opinionated credit research notes (initiation and maintenance) and issuer rating recommendations on corporates and banks. Isha holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance) and is a Chartered Accountant and Company Secretary.


Pratik Bhagat
Delivery Lead, Investment Research
Pratik is a management post-graduate with over 5 years of work experience in Fixed Income Research. He has experience in initiation and maintenance of FIC models, handling credit return and spread, writing opinionated investment notes, and understanding of various statistical algorithms. Currently, he is working for a private banking division of a large Switzerland-based bank and provides opinionated credit research notes and issuer rating recommendations on corporates and Sovereign. Pratik holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance), Post Graduate Certificate in Business Analytics & Business Intelligence (Machine Learning) and Bachelor in Technology (Petroleum).


Ankur Jain
Delivery Manager
Ankur Jain is a Delivery Manager in Acuity Knowledge Partners with over 5.5 years of experience in equity research and strategy for the US and global markets. He is an expert in macro level analysis. Ankur is also well-versed in analyzing financial data and using various data source tools. Ankur has also worked extensively on M&A-related analysis for his client. Ankur Jain is a CFA Level 3 Candidate and holds an MBA in Finance.


Monali Samaddar
Associate, Quantitative Services
Monali Samaddar is an Associate in Acuity Knowledge Partners with over 3 years of experience in economic research. She is experienced in delivering research insights and event-related commentaries on ASEAN 5 economies and other key global developments. Monali is adept at handling research requests and maintaining large databases. Monali Samaddar holds a Masters in Economics.


Avinash Kumar
Delivery Manager Investment Research
Avinash Kumar has over 7 years of experience in Equity research roles. He has worked extensively in conducting fundamental and technical research for listed companies in emerging markets. Avinash extensively covered Media and Telecom companies across Asia region and has been actively assisting Buy side clients with equity research roles. Avinash is a CFA and MBA in Finance.


Arjun Prasad
Delivery Lead, Investment Research
Arjun Prasad has over 5 years of experience in fixed income research. He has experience in supporting European and US based CLO managers by identifying suitable constituents through screening and analyzing credit quality of high yield European and US issuers. His analysis has assisted his clients to successfully roll off multiple warehouses. He holds MBA (Finance) and Bachelor of Engineering.


Shawaf Ali Baig
Associate, Compliance
Shawaf Ali Baig has overall 2.5 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has worked for State Street Global Advisors as an analyst and his expertise spans across Compliance, Policy monitoring and Personal Account dealing. At Acuity he is a part of the Central compliance team and is responsible for monitoring Corporate Compliance and trading compliance for a client. He has completed Bachelors in Commerce from Jain University, Bengaluru


Rohit Tyagi
Deliver Manager, Strategic Research and Consulting
Rohit is aligned with Acuity's, Strategy Research and Consulting team with an experience of over 10 (ten) years in managing and executing projects in different sectors including Energy, Infrastructure and Power etc.
Rohit has a diverse experience of working with stakeholders across the value chain including project developers, regulators, policy makers, financial institutes, investment agencies etc. with focus on strategy and operations, new investments, deal advisory, suggesting market entry strategies, business plans, process transformations, operation strategy, pitch documents, implementation support etc. for diverse players in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Prior to joining Acuity, Rohit has worked for one of the big-4 consulting firm and other boutique management consulting firms.
Rohit holds a Masters in Business Administration (M.B.A) with specialization in Energy from University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (U.P.E.S) and a Bachelors in Engineering (B.E) from M.D.U, India


Longaijing Ning
Associate, CCP PE-MSPEA
Longaijing Ning is an associate of PE team at Acuity Knowledge Partners, Beijing Office. She is experienced in conducting industry and company research on both qualitative and quantitative basis. Prior to joining Acuity Knowledge Partners, Longaijing gained experience in buy-side research. Longaijing holds a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Peking University, and a Master’s degree in investment research from University of London.


Gunjan Upadhyay
Delivery Lead
Gunjan Upadhyay has over 9 years of experience in market and business research domain. She works as Consumer Products & Retail market subject matter expert. Gunjan has been actively assisting leading Private Equity firms and Consumer team of Management Consulting client. Gunjan holds an MBA in Finance and a Master’s degree in Economics.


Preeti Rai
Senior Associate, Compliance Operations
Preeti Rai has overall 4 years of experience in compliance & banking operations, having worked for various firms including State Street Global Advisors and Northern Trust her expertise spans across Compliance, Policy monitoring and Risk surveillance . At Acuity she is responsible for monitoring Code of Ethics for a client. Preeti has completed her Masters in Commerce from Christ University, Bengaluru


Dipender Thapa
Assistant Director, Commercial Lending
Dipender Thapa has 12 years of experience in investment research and commercial lending. In his 8+ years at Acuity Knowledge Partners, he has managed several credit research and commercial lending teams. He is an expert in the financial institutions group (FIG) sector – covering banks, insurance companies, funds, and sovereigns – and has conducted analyst training sessions at Acuity Knowledge Partners’ Bangalore and Colombo delivery centers.
He has set up two new commercial lending accounts in the past three years. He currently oversees a commercial lending analyst team supporting one of the largest investment banks in Europe in managing its FIG loan portfolio.


Keerthivarman Balasubramaniam
Assistant Director, Commercial Lending
Keerthivarman holds a Masters in Business Administration in Finance and Marketing. Has over 10 years of professional experience covering the US commercial real estate sector, with more than six years in Acuity Knowledge Partners. Before joining Acuity Knowledge Partners’ Kipling team, Keerthi has worked with BlackRock and Accenture. Keerthi has been part of the Kipling RECM team since its inception. Is currently associated with the RECM team as Business Analyst, working directly with the client on technical support related to on-going business requirements.


Harsha Modha
Delivery Manager, Investment Research
Harsha Modha has nine years of experience in equity research. As a delivery manager at Acuity, she supports a client with research on the automotive and transportation industry. Her responsibilities include quality assurance, workflow management and maintaining the client relationship. Prior to joining Acuity, she worked at Guggenheim Transparent Value, Mumbai. She holds an MBA from ICFAI Business School (IBS), Mumbai.


Tong Chen
Senior Associate, IB
Tong Chen has associated with Acuity's for around 4 years supporting US-based investment banks’ Asia Pacific division. Currently the team leader of one IBD team, duties including financial analysis, company profile, industry research, IPO and bond issuance materials preparation, peers benchmarking, etc. Bachelor of Statistics from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and Master of Finance from Hult International Business School (San Francisco Campus)


Zahin Mohammed
Associate, FMS
Zahin Mohammed has over 4+ years of experience in the financial services industry. His expertise areas include investment banking, writing market commentaries, attribution reports and client reporting. In his current role at Acuity Knowledge Partners, he provides support in fund marketing services for the asset management industry. Zahin holds an MBA in Finance from Vellore Institute of Technology.


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