UK Government Investments (UKGI) Board member and Member of the House of Lords
Lord Jitesh Gadhia is a British Indian investment banker and businessman and Member of the House of Lords since September 2016. Lord Gadhia was previously Senior Managing Director at Blackstone based in London and has over 25 years’ investment banking experience, having also held senior positions at Barclays Capital, ABN AMRO and Baring Brothers. He has advised on a wide range of high-profile M&A transactions across developed and emerging markets including some of the largest investment flows between UK and India. Lord Gadhia is currently a Board Member of UK Government Investments, the centre of excellence for corporate finance and corporate governance for the UK Government, managing major assets including Royal Bank of Scotland. Lord Gadhia is also a Board Member of BGL Holdings, which owns comparethemarket.com, the UK’s largest digital price comparison website for financial and household services. He is also a Director of Accord Healthcare, a leading supplier of generic pharmaceuticals in the UK and internationally. Lord Gadhia is a member of the UK-India CEO Forum and serves on the Advisory Board of the City Hindus Network. He graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in economics and attended the London Business School as a Sloan Fellow. Jitesh is an active philanthropist both personally and through The Gadhia Foundation, supporting a wide range of charities in UK and overseas. He is a Patron of the British Asian Trust established by HRH The Prince of Wales, which is active in multiple projects in India.
Member of the House of Lords, Former Minister, UN Women
Baroness Verma has been a business-woman since 1980. She is also a Member of the House of Lords since 2006. Baroness Verma served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for International Development from May 2015 until July 2016. She has been a Conservative member of the House of Lords since 2006 and previously served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for DECC. Currently Chair of the European External Affairs Committee at the House of Lords, Chair of UN Women UK and Co-Founder of Powerful Women (promoting women in the energy sector). Sandy’s current businesses include Domiciliary Care Services UK (provider of adult social care), Nexus Green (renewable energy) and Oak Stones (a platform for start-up companies). She is also an investor in boutique fitness company, Define London, advisor to digital application company, Pathfinder and advisor to Amity University, India
Dealmaker, Dept for International Trade
Alpesh Patel is a barrister turned fund manager. He is a Financial Times author and has had over 200 investment columns published in the FT. He is a UK Government Dealmaker responsible for Middle East and Asia Pacific and bringing high growth tech companies to the UK. He is co-Chair of the Loomba Trust which supports widows and orphans. A former Visiting Fellow in Business at Oxford University, he was a founding member of the UK India Business Council and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) which mentors entrepreneurs. He previously presented his investment show on Bloomberg TV helping regular people learning about finance and investing. The then PM appointed him to the UK India Roundtable to advise Government on building closer UK India ties. He does the BBC World News Paper Review to a global audience of 300m and uses it when he can to give a ‘Hindu’ perspective and also lectures annually at Oxford University on Hinduism and Leadership for the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies to a management audience.
Businessman, Community Organiser and Politician
Dhruv is the Founder and a Director of CHN. He is a businessman with interests in private rented sector property, retail pharmacy and the Lloyds of London insurance market. He is an Independent Elected Councillor at the City of London Corporation representing Aldgate Ward EC3 and is Chair of the City Bridge Trust Committee. He is also the Chair of the local governing body of Hindu faith primary school Avanti Court in Barkingside. He was appointed an OBE in 2018 for his voluntary service to the British Hindu community and to Social Cohesion. He is married with two young children and lives in Leytonstone.
Managing Director at Deutsche Bank
Dixit Joshi is the Managing Director at Deutsche Bank for the past 9 years, he has also doubled up as the Group Treasurer from 2017 to date. Dixit is also a Board Directors for ISDA, Pratham UK and an Advisory Board Member for the City Hundus Network. He is also a trustee for the Student Sponsorship Programme from 2016.
Director Deloitte
Nishma Gosrani is the Director in Deloitte’s Financial Services Consulting practice in London, with a focus on the Human Capital portfolio. Nishma originated and led delivery of multi-jurisdiction transformation programmes across front/middle office and corporate functions. Focus on restructuring of the workforce, including re-organisation design following cost reduction. Nishma was invested with an OBE in Her Majesty’s 2020 Honours List for pioneering Gender Pay Gap reporting and the subsequent changes to the Equality Act. She was also listed in the Financial Times EmPower Top 35 Future Leader List. She has also been appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce.
Managing Director Arjun Global Ltd and Founder and Chairman of Go Dharmic
Hemal Randerwala has over fifteen years of experience in the financial markets. Arjun Global is a finance and technology consultancy firm working with International exchanges, and assisting firms with strengthening relationships and new product development. He is also the founder of www.godharmic.com a volunteering platform for social change. He has co-authored two books: ‘The Power of Dharma’ and ‘Pearls of Wisdom from Hinduism’ and is currently working on a book translating the Upanishads with Ram Dass titled, ‘Be Your Self’.
Chief Wizard @builderai (formerly engineer.ai)
Sachin Duggal is an innovation mad entrepreneur, Sachin’s aim is to build technology that simplifies the lives of every day users and increases the penetration of information technology to those who do not have it today. He is an Information Systems Engineer with specialisation in Mandarin, Finance, Distributed Systems, Software Engineering, Computational Maths and Operations research with Game Theory.
Co-Founder and Chairman Finboot, Deputy Chair, London Chamber of Commerce
Nish Kotecha is a serial technology, fintech and social entrepreneur. Currently the Co-founder and Chair of Finboot (London, Barcelona) which is the dynamic company behind MARCO, a unique block chain agnostic, enterprise grade SaaS product. Finboot is part of the DIT Global Entrepreneur programme. Nish started his career as a corporate financier at Sphere Partners, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, Barclays (BZW).
Founder, CEO and Board Director of E2Exchange (E2E), Dealmaker, UK Government
Shalini Khemka champions and connects entrepreneurs, creates communities, invests equity capital and recruits non-executive directors for SMEs. Shalini’s background is in financial services, with a specialism in banking. In previous executive roles, Shalini co-founded the world’s first online ‘bank to bank’ trade finance company, after which she served as an Investment Director at LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. Shalini also brings extensive advisory experience to UK Export Finance (UKEF), having previously served on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Entrepreneurs (CFE) and the Development Board of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Currently, she is a fellow of Burton & South Derbyshire College, and a member of both the Mayor of London’s Business Advisory Board and the Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth Entrepreneurs. As a member of UKEF’s Board, Shalini supports the Chief Executive and Ministers in developing UKEF’s strategy and overseeing its operations by providing advice, challenge and assurance.
Partner at Blanchards Law
Punam Denley set up Blanchards law, a boutique family law practice in the City and the Home Counties. She is a solicitor, mediator and collaborative lawyer, carrying out divorce, finance and children work. She has 25 years of experience in this area of law. She prides herself on her accessibility to her clients and the quality of her work. She is a published author. In the Legal 500, she “attracts plaudits from clients”, as well as being described as “organised, empathetic and strategically excellent.” She specialises in private family law and particularly income and asset distribution on divorce. She deals with both international and domestic matters. She has particular expertise in appealing against previous orders and setting aside orders made in financial proceedings, and applications under Part III of the MFPA 1984. She commentates on legal matters and lecture regularly. Aside from two books, she writes for legal journals and lecture to other solicitors and professionals. She participates in web and other training sessions and recordings for other lawyers.
Head of Growth Capital, Dept for International Trade
Aekta Patel is the Head of the Venture Capital Team at the Department for International Trade. In this role she helps bring more overseas VC investment and private wealth investment into UK companies and UK funds. She also leads a team of specialists to help attract more funds to set up in the UK. Prior to DIT, she worked in the Cabinet Office working closely with Ministers and Number 10; leading on initiatives such as growing social investment in the UK as well as making government departments more efficient. Before joining the Civil Service, she spent a few years working as a Management Consultant at Accenture, followed by a 2 year stint in Deutsche Bank’s global strategy team. In 2012, Aekta was selected as one of Management Today’s “35 Women Under 35” list.
Gsec and DASH Cloud Lead at PwC
Nilesh has a track record of passionate value add service to customers with sound technical background, in depth overview of the technology strategy and business landscape.
Member Board of Trustees, City Sikh Network
Param is part of City Sikh Network and will be helping us with our inter-faith work and our collaborative events with City Sikh Network.
Partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP
Raenu Barod is a partner in Hinshaw & Culbertson’s London and New York offices. She practices in the area of commercial litigation and arbitration, with a focus on reinsurance and insurance matters.
Business Owner, Formerly NHS, BBC, CNBC
Archana Patel is now a new business owner at Minuteman Press Huddersfield. She formerly worked with BBC, CNBC and the NHS Foundation Trust as the Programme Executive – Education and Events.
Vice President, Regulatory Policy at Deutsche Bank
Bijal Shah is an experienced Vice President with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry. Bijal is the Personal Development Lead at the City Hindus Network
and has chaired and coordinated various mental health events with the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police in London to tackle mental health stigma within ethnic minority communities.
Founder & CEO, TK-Advisory (Scale-Up, VC and PE advisory)
Tarang Katira is the Founder & CEO, TK-Advisory (Scale-Up, VC and PE advisory). His company works with private equity, credit and venture capital GPs to provide them with an “LP perspective” on their offerings and with businesses and scale ups to institutionalise the business, improve business models.
Entrepreneurial Management Professional
Former Captain in the British Army, served in Afghanistan, ex-Sandhurst.He is a motivational leader, with a deep understanding of business needs and proven ability to drive success.
Global Transformation Program Manager and Change Management Consultant
Dimpi Dattani is a Global Transformation Program Manager and Change Management Consultant, She is currently the Group HR Program Manager for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).
Senior Vice President – Sales, Jefferies
Dipen specialises in Sales, Business Developement and Relationship Management. His company, Second Degree Limitedorganises at least 50 West End theatre trips per year and invests directly in West End theatre.
Founder, Director and CEO Advatech Healthcare Europe & Advatech Healthcare Pvt. Ltd
Samit Biswas is a Health Care professional with nearly 23+ years of experience in Strategic Management, Business Operations, Marketing, New Business Development, and Product Management and 10 years in Commercial Functions. The Founder & CEO of Advatech Healthcare Pvt. Ltd & Advatech Healthcare Europe Ltd. He launched India’s First App-based Ambulance services to offer BLS/ALS Ambulances within 15-20 minutes across East & Delhi NCR. He holds the distinction of contributing maximum to the underprivileged children’s education under Corporate Social Responsibility program.
Partner, Singhania & Co LLP, Chairman Assocham
Vijay Goel is Partner at Singhania & Co. LLP. He is the founder of the “Indo-European Business Forum” established in 2007. Vijay was conferred an award in 2015 by Indian Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitley. He was also conferred Asian Achievers ‘Award for Professional of the Year’in 2010, ‘National Law Day Award’ in 2009 by Her Excellency, Smt. Pratibha Devi Singh Patil, the Hon’ble President of Republic of India, for his most exemplary contributions in commercial law and in strengthening Indo-UK business relations and ‘Asian Leadership in Europe’ by Asian Who’s Who International in 2009. Vijay also doubles up as advisor to the Hinduja group and was Special Advisor to the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) for investments. (www.cbcglobal.org) that has connections in 53 countries.
Founder at Magic of India
Outstanding Achievement British Indian Award winner Geeta Srivastava, nurtures a social enterprise called Magic Of India aimed at bringing Indian culture and language alive in a fun and engaging way, through classes, school workshops and festive events. One of her flagship events in the year is the widely attended is Holi At London, which is a massive community event. Her other roles include being the Director of The Indus Entrepreneurs UK, a networking organisation, as well as serving as Producer of a 13-episode television series on the best Indian restaurants of London.
