Board of Advisors

A senior level banker with over 38 years of experience spanning International and Corporate Banking across geographies, Retail Banking, Credit & Risk Management, Liability Management, Human Resource Management as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of three banks including the State Bank of India (SBI), State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur (SBBJ) and the SBI (International) Mauritius; participating in providing leadership to the Indian Financial System and being in the forefront of various initiatives undertaken by the SBI Group. As a professional he has extensive experience in leading the bank in complex transaction situations affecting both the top-line and bottom-line, regulatory compliance and has also headed bank committees regarding strategic alternatives, capital structure and liquidity, impact on earnings per share, shareholder disputes and has been been involved with the evaluation of large value projects involving sanction of funds for mergers, acquisitions, green field and brown field projects in his role as the head of the highest level credit committee of the State Bank.

S Sridhar is an IIT/IIM alumnus and has vast knowledge about the banking industry, housing industry, the financial sector and the economy as a whole. Shri Sridhar has strategic insights into risk management practices, micro financing, long term measures for high inflation rate, FDI in retail sector etc. After all the domain knowledge and technical aspects his chief key advice is “Keep working hard” despite the ephemeral highs and lows.

John Mathew, Managing Director at Alma Fund Associates Pvt. Ltd. has been the Managing Director & CEO of Centbank Financial Services Limited, the Investment Banking arm and 100% subsidiary of Central Bank of India before which he was the Chief General Manager & Country Head - Corporate Banking, Export-Import Bank of India, managing a portfolio of over US$ 3 billion with over 300 active corporate client relationships. He has over 28 years of managerial experience of which over 20 years have been in Banking including 5 years as Head of Corporate Banking and 16 years of experience in Corporate / Investment Banking. His vast experience encompasses very senior & mature expertise in corporate and structured finance, private equity, project finance and credit appraisal, financial modeling, new product development, high yielding cross border LBOs, business development & origination, debt syndication, financial restructuring, infrastructure projects, legal and contractual documentation.

Jayant Chiney has been a banker throughout his career spanning 36 years. He retired as General manager from Bank of India. He was instrumental in establishing the overseas operations of Bank of India. At Alma, he is a guide to other team members.

His career spans over three decades of strategic legal work in large Corporates like Crompton Greaves, Boots India Ltd., Mahindra & Mahindra, Wanbury Ltd. As a Corporate Legal Executive he has played catalytic roles in inking of joint ventures, collaborations, acquisitions and international contracts.

Prem Shinkar has been an Entrepreneur having spent over 29 years in the Printing & Publishing and IT space. Starting his career in 1987 with ORG Systems as a Marketing Executive of Unix based & Oracle based supermini systems as well as application software products, he handled accounts in the BFSI space. He moved on to enterprise in 1990 in Desk Top Publishing & Printing business. Since he was always in touch with IT, Internet & Web based technologies he pursued a second profession with Telescient Technologies as India Marketing Head. He is a co-founder and Director at Strugence Business Platforms Private Limited an IT enabled Services and Software development Company. At Strugence Business Platforms he has led the creation of several IT assets -www.Growthvistas.com , www.CSRNOBLE.com , www.Strugencerealtyinvestments.com and SIMS (Structured Investments Management System). He is involved in defining the Business requirements, the scope, the architecture, the user interfaces of the IT products and project management of the development, branding etc. as well as operations and administration of the Portals.

Dasharath Satam is a Director at Alma Business IT Private Limited, Charterd Accountant and CFA. He has been a hardcore banker with 17 years of experience. He has worked with UTI and IDBI(DFI). He is experienced on both sides of the Balance Sheet. He has represented IDBI at various Judicial / Quasi-Judicial Forums viz. BIFR, AAIFR, DRT, DART and CDR. He was also involved in setting up of Insurance JV of IDBI.

He has been a banker with Bank of India over 36 years. He has been involved in the Recovery Department for over 6 years. Post Bank of India he has worked with ASREC (ARC).