Investment Team

Sridhar has over 25 years of experience in Finance, Funds Management and Business Development areas. His strength is his ability to tactfully combine his in-depth experience and knowledge with analytics, common sense and people orientation.

Till mid 2009, Sridhar was the CEO of UTI International (Singapore) Ltd., an investment management Company of UTI AMC Ltd at Singapore. As a CEO of this MAS Licensed fund management company in Singapore, he was responsible for driving the entire investment management business of the company, which included business development, sales & marketing, product development, fund management and investment operations at Singapore. During his tenure at Singapore, he had set up this full fledged investment management company from the scratch and was also managing funds for overseas institutional clients from Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Middle East.

Till July 2007, Sridhar was the Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of UTI AMC Ltd., managing the Equity and Debt Funds of Rs. 48,000 crores (USD 10 billion). He has handled various assignments covering diverse facets of investment management industry such as project financing, credit rating, treasury, project financing, infrastructure funding, equity research, business development and corporate planning, in addition to his core area of investment management. He has also extensively contributed on various board level committees on Investment, Product Development, HR, Risk Management and Corporate Strategy.

Sridhar started his career with Price Waterhouse Coppers in 1984. Subsequently, he worked in the finance division of Ashok Leyland Ltd., for three years, before he joined the erstwhile UTI, in Dec 1998. Sridhar was a member of BSE Index Committee, NSE Index Policy Committee and FTSE Asia Pacific Regional Equity Committee. He was also a Director on the Board of ‘Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI)’ for more than 3 years, till 2007.

Sridhar is a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Madras.

He is married to Padma and they have two daughters Manasvi and Esha. He is a voracious reader, listens to varied music and loves travelling.

Sandeep has an experience of over 19 years in the Mutual fund industry. Prior to working with IndiaFirst he was with Multi-Act Equity Research Private Ltd. as a Consultant. Before this, he has worked with Matrix AMC Private Ltd., as Vice President - Finance & Accounting, where he was in-charge of operations (banking/ treasury/ custody & settlement and fund accounting). He has also worked with HSBC (Institutional Fund Services) where he worked as Associate Vice President - Mutual Funds Operations and with UTI Mutual Fund where he was responsible for Fund management – Debt & Balanced funds, Treasury Management, investment & income accounting, Mutual Fund compliance and IT projects as functional consultant.

Sandeep holds a B.Com degree and is qualified I.C.W.A.I.

He is married to Apoorva, a Bachelor of Fine Arts, (J.J. School of Arts). They have two daughters, Samruddhi and Bhargavi. He loves watching cricket. He also spends his spare time for devotional services aimed at helping the needy sections of the society.

Poonam has an experience of over 15 years in the financial services sector. This includes an aggregate work experience of nearly 12 years with special focus on treasury, spanning 4 years in the IDBI Treasury and 6 years in Securities Trading Corporation of India (STCI) as Chief Dealer. In STCI, she was instrumental in setting up the Corporate bonds desk and the Swaps desk. During her engagement with Paternoster, a start-up pension fund based in London, she was involved in the operations of the UK Sterling Fixed Income Market. She also provided assistance in portfolio management and ALM through liability driven investment and portfolio hedging through swaps. She was also involved in risk management in various processes associated with the investment portfolio of the London-based fund. She played a vital role in setting up their Mid-office too. Prior to working with IndiaFirst she was with MetLife Insurance as a Fund Manager, for fixed income portfolio.

Poonam holds a Ph.D in Financial Management. She has done her B.Com (Hons) from Delhi University and holds a PGDBM from XLRI, Jamshedpur and CAIIB.

She is married to Dr. Sandeep Tandon and they have a 13 year old son, Aditya. She loves reading books, listening to music, teaching and has keen interest in homeopathy.

Prasanna has an experience of around 8 years. He started his career with HLL - Unilever where he was responsible for business process designing, cost optimization and large scale technology implementation. He then worked for UTI AMC for around 5 years as an Assistant Fund Manager. He worked on equity research and also assisted in managing funds suc as Service Sector Fund, Master Growth Fund and Index Select Fund, the total AUM being to the tune of Rs. 2,000 crore. Prior to joining IndiaFirst he was with Taurus AMC as a Fund Manager and managed Taurus Tax-Shield Scheme - One of the top 5 funds in the ELSS category, Tarus Bonanza Scheme and Taurus Discovery Scheme. He also co-managed the Infrastructure Fund - best turn-around fund according to Business World.

Prasanna won the Unilever Process Technology & Innovation award (2001-2002). Also, he has co-authored an International Patent for ‘Aeration of Soaps’, Unilever India.

Prasanna holds a B.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering and an MBA in Finance from S.P. Jain-Mumbai.

He is married to Anuja Pathak, a Software Engineer. They have a three year old daughter, Aarna Pathak. Prasanna is an ardent trekker and loves watching movies and reading books.  

Viraj has around five years of experience in equity research and has strong technical command in financial modeling and forecasting. Prior to working with IndiaFirst, he was with Angel Broking Limited as a Research Analyst, where he handled fundamental research on the institutional front. His sectors covered included Midcaps, Hospitality, Power T&D, Retail and Tyres. He was involved in preparing detailed financial models, writing research/ sector reports, preparing quarterly updates and tracking key events of the companies/ sectors under coverage. Before this, he worked with Fortune Financial Services (India) Ltd., Finquest Securities Pvt. Ltd. and Falcon Brokerage Pvt. Ltd. He did his articleship with KANJ & Associates, Practicing Company Secretaries.

Viraj is a Bachelor of Commerce and Master of Commerce from Pune University and is a Company Secretary(Institute of Company Secretaries of India).

Viraj is married to Komal. He loves reading, travelling and listening to music.