TEAM
Investment Advisors' Team Operating Consultants
Samara India Advisors acts as an investment advisor to the Fund. Samara India Advisors bring with themselves a rich experience, understanding and knowledge of the Indian and global economy and financial markets, as well as management experience and best governance practices from global financial institutions.
 
 
Sumeet Narang
Gautam Gode
Sanjay Bhargava
           
Paurush Roy
Manish Mehta
Vikram Agarwal
           
Abhishek Kabra
Pratik Nowlakha
Deepak Mittal
           
Sapna Kalantri  
 
 
 
 
Sumeet Narang
Founder and Managing Director
 
Prior to founding Samara Capital in late 2006, Sumeet briefly worked at Goldman Sachs, NY in their Proprietary Investments Group. During 2001-04, he worked with Citigroup India across various functions based out of Delhi and Hyderabad. He also has worked with the Fiat group in Italy and India.

Sumeet earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar and John Loeb fellow. He also earned a Masters in Business from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM), where he was an Aditya Birla Scholar and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, where he received a “University Blue” for outstanding contribution to University Squash team, of which he was the captain.
 
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Gautam Gode
Co-Founder and Managing Director
 
Before joining Samara Capital, Gautam was a Director with Citigroup’s Corporate & Investment Banking business, and he has had more than 13 years of experience in different leadership roles in this business in different geographies looking after client relationships, origination and investing. This includes heading the South India business and the Public Sector franchise.

His experience spans origination and working on deals spanning M&A, private equity, equity capital markets, distressed debt, structured fundraising, and derivatives. The deals covered a gamut of industries – technology, pharmaceuticals, cement, industrials, manufacturing, textiles, infrastructure, oil & gas, telecom, and power.

Gautam is a cum laude graduate from Princeton University followed by an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad.
 
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Sanjay Bhargava
Managing Director
 
Sanjay has over 15 years experience in management of manufacturing, industrials and real estate businesses. Prior to joining Samara Capital, he was with Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation ltd, a Wadia Group Company with responsibilities for Business Development including M & A. He was instrumental in acquisition and integration of auto component companies, setting up of Real Estate Business for BBTCL, formulation of key RE projects for BBTCL and other Wadia Group companies. He was also COO of the Building Products Business (laminates) of BBTCL.

He has managed Industrial gases, Catalysts and Speciality Chemical Businesses in his prior stints with Inox Air Products and Parekh Platinum and was able to significantly increase volumes, profitability and bandwidth of the businesses. He commenced his career with ICI in manufacturing and techno-commercial roles in ICI’s Fertilisers and Catalysts Businesses. He was also responsible for HSE and Quality Assessment aspects of the Catalysts Business.

Sanjay is a Chemical Engineer from IIT Kanpur with a DBF from ICFAI.
 
 
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Paurush Roy
Managing Director
 
Prior to joining Samara Capital in 2008, Paurush worked with Deutsche Bank Global Markets, India during 2007-08. At Deutsche Bank, Paurush was heading the coverage function for Eastern India and a large state in South India.

Paurush also has work experience with Citigroup Corporate & Investment Bank, where he worked from 2004-07 in the Eastern India market as a senior banker. Paurush started his banking career with HSBC, India in 2000 and worked in various functions and markets from 2000-04. During his career he has worked with leading and emerging corporates across multiple sectors like energy, consumer goods, industrials, retail, and infrastructure, providing innovative, and customized financial solutions across the capital structure.

Paurush holds an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow and also received his B.E. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee.
 
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Manish Mehta, CFA
Managing Director
 
Prior to joining Samara Capital, Manish worked with the Private Equity Fund at Lehman Brothers in New York. Before that, Manish was a Principal in a $10 billion multi-strategy hedge fund at Barclays Global Investors. Manish also briefly worked in Real Estate Private Equity at Grove International Partners (Soros Fund) where he was covering India investments primarily in the hotel sector. Manish began his finance career with Lehman Brothers in 2001 in New York.

Manish earned his Masters in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction. Manish also has a Master of Science in Transportation & Logistics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received his Bachelors degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorke where he was the top ranking student in his class. Manish is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
 
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Vikram Agarwal
Director and Chief Financial officer
 
Vikram joined Samara India Sub Advisor in November 2007 from PwC where he worked in the Tax and Regulatory Services Group. Vikram has around nine years of experience in domestic and cross border taxation in consulting as well as industry. At PwC, he handled assignments pertaining to domestic and cross border M&A transactions, inbound and outbound investment structuring, due diligence, corporate restructuring - holding and capital structuring. He has conducted tax planning studies for large Corporates including Public Sector Undertakings. His experience spans sectors such as Energy, Infrastructure and Real Estate, Engineering, Telecom, and Manufacturing.

He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Graduate in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.
 
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Abhishek Kabra
Vice President
 
Before joining Samara in mid 2008, Abhishek was an equity analyst in Reliance Mutual Fund where he was actively analyzing and recommending listed companies in the infrastructure, cement, textiles and mid cap space for over 2 years. He has also worked as a credit administrator with Citifinancial Retail Services India Ltd for a year.

Abhishek holds an MBA degree from S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai.

He is also a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Certified Treasury Manager from Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India.
 
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Pratik Nowlakha
Vice President
 
Pratik has worked as an Equity Research Analyst with Batlivala & Karani Securities for over two years, tracking the Indian Media & Entertainment sector. He has researched Indian media companies across segments, such as broadcasting, television & filmed content, exhibition, radio and print.

Prior to that, he was involved in running a manufacturing startup end to end, in Kolkata. He has also done traineeship stints at Kotak Securities and Templeton Asset Management in marketing and sales.

Pratik has earned a Masters in Business Management from Goa Institute of Management, with a specialization in Finance. He is currently pursuing the CFA certification.
 
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Deepak Mittal
Associate
 
Deepak worked for more than 2 years with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as a management consultant. As a consultant, he worked across several industries including cement, telecom, industrial goods, renewable energy, retail and outsourcing.

He also worked as a software engineer with Qwest Communications for 2 years and for a year as civil Engineer with SIEMENS.

Deepak earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad, where he graduated as Dean's List Fellow. He has also earned Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institution of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He has completed a certification in Financial Risk Management (FRM) from Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).
 
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Sapna Kalantri
Financial Controller
 
Prior to joining Samara Capital in 2010, Sapna was an Assistant Manager in the Audit and Assurance Services Group of Price Waterhouse and Coopers, Mumbai. Her stint with Price Waterhouse spanned over 6 years handling audits of companies across sectors including financial services, ITeS and manufacturing. For about one year, she was part of the team handling audits of non banking financial services companies including NBFC’s, asset management companies and private equity funds.

Sapna is a qualified Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and also a commerce graduate from the University of Madras.
 
 
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