OUR LEADERSHIP

Rashesh Shah
Chairman

Rashesh Shah, Chairman, Edelweiss Group, has three decades of diverse experience in the financial markets and has been instrumental in building Edelweiss into one of India’s leading diversified financial services organisations.

Rashesh is passionate about financial services and the role it plays in translating India's vast savings into investments; thereby powering economic growth and development. A regular commentator on macro-economic policies, Rashesh has served as President of FICCI, which is India's apex industry association, in 2017-18.

He has also been a part of the High Level Task Force on Public Credit Registry for India, the Insolvency Law Committee, Executive Committee of the National Stock Exchange as well as the committee to review Insider Trading Regulations set up by SEBI – the country's capital markets regulator.

An MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, he also holds a Diploma in International Trade from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi.

Venkatchalam Ramaswamy
Vice Chairman

Venkat has nearly three decades of experience in the financial markets and has been one of the driving forces in transforming what was once India’s first new age boutique investment bank to a leading diversified financial services company.

Amongst his responsibilities, he also Heads Edelweiss’s Asset Management Business. Venkat has been instrumental in building a client-need focused solutions approach in Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company.

Using his skills at building and maintaining large institutional relationships, including International Pension Funds and Insurance companies, the Alternative Asset Management business has become among the largest in India.

An MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, USA, he also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering.

Vidya Shah
Non-Executive, Non-Independent Director & Chairperson, Edelweiss ESG Council

Vidya Shah is the Chairperson and CEO of EdelGive Foundation, an organisation set up by Edelweiss Group, with the aim of funding and building the capacities of India’s not-for-profit sector.

With over three decades of rich industry experience, she has established EdelGive as a platform for strategic philanthropy. Under her stewardship, EdelGive has been instrumental in growing over 150 organisations, scaling their budgets, impact and reach exponentially.

She also serves on the board of various prominent Civil Society Organisations such as Agastya International Foundation, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy at Ashoka University, Mann Deshi Foundation and the Indian School of Public Policy.

She spent the first 11 years of her career in the field of investment banking with companies like ICICI, Peregrine and NM Rothschild.

Vidya holds an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Ashok Kini
Independent Director

Ashok Kini has over four decades of experience in the financial services industry. He joined State Bank of India as Probationary Officer in 1967 and retired as the Managing Director in 2005. In addition to the Edelweiss Financial Services Limited Board, Ashok is on the Board of Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (a subsidiary of the Company), since November 2011.

He has, throughout his career, held important board-level positions across numerous corporates in India Inc., namely IndusInd Bank Limited, SBI Capital Markets Limited, UTI Trustee Company Pvt. Ltd. and Gulf Oil Lubricants India Limited, to name a few.

He was appointed by the Government of India as Managing Director – National Banking, Chairman of a Regional Rural Bank, Chief Dealer in the Offshore Banking Unit in Bahrain, among others. He also served as an Advisor to the Thorat Committee on Financial Inclusion at the Reserve Bank of India.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Science from Mysore University and a Master’s Degree in English Literature from Madras Christian College, Chennai.

Dr. Ashima Goyal
Independent Director

Dr. Ashima Goyal has over three decades of experience. She is a Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, a part-time member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and also serves as an Independent Director at IDBI Bank.

She is a specialist in the areas of open economy macroeconomics, international finance, institutional economics and development economics. She has been a visiting fellow at the Economic Growth Centre, Yale University, USA and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University, USA.

She has an M. Phil., MA and BA in Economics from the University of Delhi and holds a PhD in Economics from University of Mumbai.

Shiva Kumar
Independent Director

Shiva Kumar has served at State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur (now merged with the State Bank of India) as Managing Director. At State Bank of India, he was Deputy Managing Director and has held various positions. He was also the Project Leader for the business process re-engineering project for complete transformation of the largest Bank in India in collaboration with McKinsey & Company. He was a part of their credit card project and had set up metal gold business for the Bank. He was also a representative of Associate Banks on the Managing Committee of Indian Banks’ Association. In 2013, he received the ‘Business Leadership Award’, from the Institute of Public Enterprises.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Patna University and is an associate member of the Indian Institute of Bankers.

C. Balagopal
Independent Director

Mr. C. Balagopal is the former Chairman of the Board of Federal Bank Ltd. He is also a Trustee of Anaha Trust; Member of the Governing Council of the Centre for Management Development, Trivandrum; Member of the Advisory Board of Fourth Wave Foundation; Member of the Board of TIMed Medical Devices Incubator of SCTIMST. Mr. Balagopal completed his BA and MA from Loyola College, Madras University, and joined the IAS in 1977 and worked in Manipur and Kerala.

In 1983, he resigned from the IAS to promote a venture to make hi-tech biomedical devices for the first time in the country. Acquiring the knowhow from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Trivandrum (SCTIMST) and with the support of National Research Development Corporation and KSIDC, he set up his venture, Penpol Ltd, near Trivandrum.

In 1999, Penpol entered into a joint venture with the Terumo Corporation of Japan. Today, Terumo Penpol Ltd is the biggest manufacturer of blood bags in India and one of the world’s biggest makers of high-tech bio-medical devices. In 2012, he sold his stake in Penpol and turned to investing in startups, mentoring entrepreneurs, writing (four books to his credit), travel, and his many other interests.

Mr Balagopal runs a Trust, which supports social projects in Kerala and Manipur in primary health, primary education, and rural livelihoods.