Board of Directors

Samir is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountant of India and a Cost Accountant from the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of India

She founded Search and Inspire in 2010 - an Executive Search firm specializing in Banking & Financial Services and Real Estate, focusing on mid to senior-level searches across India.
Neela is a Management Graduate in Finance from the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (Mumbai).

Mr. Bharat Shah has been with HDFC Bank since its inception and has played a key role in the formation of the bank. He joined HDFC Bank as an Executive Director in December 1994.
He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Science from the University of Mumbai and a Diploma in Applied Chemistry from Borough Polytechnic, London.
He has rich experience in the financial services sector and has expertise in the fields of banking, finance, real estate, and securities market.

At Venture Lab, Vikas leads the group's work on investments, in addition to leading portfolio relationships and driving strategy and growth. Prior to joining Accion, Vikas worked at Evercore Partners where he was on the Mergers and Acquisitions team.
Previously, Vikas spent two years focused on the Microfinance Sector, primarily in India, at Ujjivan and Catalyst Microfinance Investors (CMI). He started his career at Deloitte Consulting where he was in the Corporate Strategy group.
Vikas has a bachelor's degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University.

Prior to co-founding Paragon Partners, Sid served as a Principal in the Mumbai office of Actis, a leading emerging markets private equity fund with a growing portfolio of investments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with an AUM of over $6 billion. Sid joined Actis’ London office in 2008 and focused primarily on the Financial Services industry. He completed 6 investments across a number of sectors and geographies, managed 8 companies in Actis' Indian portfolio, and executed 6 exits. Sid has also been an active participant in the angel network in India, having invested in a number of start-ups engaged in the financial technology and health & fitness sectors.
Prior to Actis, Sid was an Investment Analyst at the International Finance Corporation based in Washington D.C. focusing on investing in the Global Manufacturing & Services sectors and also spent 2 years as a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in New York.
He has an MBA and Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Prior to Quona, Ganesh was a General Partner of Lok Capital, a venture growth fund that invests in enterprises offering innovative services in financial inclusion, education, and employability. Ganesh previously served as Director and Head of Asia for Unitus Inc., backing commercially sustainable solutions in inclusive finance. At Lok and Unitus, Ganesh advised several pioneering financial services leaders including Ujjivan, SKS Microfinance, Equitas, and Bandhan. Prior to Unitus, he led the entry of Silicon Valley-based VC firm, Greylock Partners into the Indian market and co-founded Travelguru.com (acquired by Travelocity). Early in his career, Ganesh worked on Fortune 500 consumer and financial services clients at Infosys.
Ganesh's current and past investment and entrepreneurial advisory roles include Unitus Seed Fund, Village Capital, the Indian Angel Network, Accion Venture Lab, GSF, IIM-Ahmedabad, and ISB, and he has been featured on Bloomberg, CNBC, and The Economic Times. His current investments include IndiaMart, NeoGrowth, CreditMantri, SMECorner, Fisdom, Julo, Sunday, Koinworks, and Bukuwarung. Ganesh previously served on the boards of Hippocampus Learning Centres, Coins.ph, Rural Shores, and Shubham (exit to Premji-Invest). Ganesh has an MBA from Harvard Business School, and Masters and Engineering degrees from IIM Kolkata and IIT-Varanasi, respectively. Ganesh is a frequent speaker at global industry events including Asia Investment Conference, SuperReturn, Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), India-China Fintech Summit, and LendIt.