Sumeet Narang

Prior to founding Samara Advisors in 2007, Sumeet briefly worked at Goldman Sachs in New York in its Proprietary Investments Group. During 2001-04, he worked with Citigroup India across various functions in Delhi and Hyderabad. He has also worked with the Fiat group in Italy and India.

Sumeet earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar and John Loeb fellow. He also earned a Master’s in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM), where he was an Aditya Birla Scholar and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, where he received a “University Blue” for outstanding contribution to the University Squash team, of which he was the captain.

Sumeet provides overall leadership to Samara Advisors and spends his time in strengthening the Samara brand amongst entrepreneurs, company managements, bankers and financiers.

Gautam Gode

Gautam Gode co-founded Samara Advisors in 2007. He leads investment evaluation efforts in some specific sectors, in addition to providing overall leadership and management to the firm.

Previously, Gautam was a Director with Citigroup’s Corporate & Investment Banking business in India, and over 13 years, led various parts of the franchise including the public sector and South India businesses.

He graduated cum laude from Princeton University with an AB in Political Economy and followed it with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad.

Gautam is also an amateur middle-distance runner and high-altitude hiker.

Paurush Roy

Paurush Roy is a Managing Director at Samara Advisors since January 2008 and as an Investing Managing Director, he has worked on multiple investment and exit evaluations. He is progressively spending more of his time seeking to strengthen the Samara Advisors franchise on various fronts, including building deep and extensive proprietary networks, a financial intermediary ecosystem, identifying top-tier CEOs across industries, and improving the firm’s operating and risk management systems and processes.

Previously, Paurush worked with Deutsche Bank Global Markets in India as a Vice President during 2007-08, heading the coverage function for eastern India. Paurush worked with Citigroup Corporate & Investment Bank, during 2004-07 in the eastern India market as a senior banker and Vice President. Paurush started his banking career with HSBC India in 2000 and worked in various functions and markets from 2000-04.

Paurush holds an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow and received his B.E. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee.

Manish Mehta

Manish Mehta is a Managing Director, Investments at Samara Capital and has been with Samara Capital since 2010.

Manish has led investments in the Consumer, Retail, Healthcare and Business Services verticals for the Fund. He serves on the board of Sapphire Foods, Iron Mountain India, Lotus Surgicals and First Meridian Business Services and was previously associated with Paradise Food Court, Ganga Kaveri Seeds, Thyrocare Technologies and Asian Institute of Gastroenterology.

Prior to joining Samara Capital, Manish worked with the Private Equity Fund at Lehman Brothers in New York. Before that, Manish was a Principal in a $10 billion multi-strategy hedge fund at Barclays Global Investors. Manish also briefly worked in Real Estate Private Equity at Grove International Partners (Soros Fund) where he was covering investments primarily in the hotel sector. Manish began his finance career with Lehman Brothers in 2001 in New York.

Manish earned his MBA from the Harvard Business School where he graduated with Distinction. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Transportation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Bachelors degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee.

Vikram Agarwal

Vikram Agarwal joined Samara Advisors in November 2007 and is a Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the firm. As CFO, he is responsible for overseeing the financial reporting, compliance, legal, and governance work within the firm and all the funds advised by the firm. Vikram works closely with the deal teams on due diligence of target companies, structuring and negotiation of deal terms, sourcing deal level leverage, and closure of transactions. As an operating partner of the firm, Vikram also helps the portfolio companies in M&A activities, raising capital from banks, equity investors or from capital markets.

Previously, Vikram worked with PwC Delhi where he spent over seven years in the tax and regulatory practice.

Vikram is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a commerce graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi.

Abhik Mitra

Abhik Mitra joined Samara in April 2023 as Managing Director, Operations Group. Abhik works closely with the leadership of portfolio companies to drive transformation through operational excellence leading to accelerated value creation. Abhik has demonstrated transformational leadership abilities throughout this career, highlight being transforming SpotOn Logistics over a 11 year period by growing it multi fold and making it one of the leading road express logistics businesses in the country. Prior to SpotOn, Abhik turned around CEAT’s Sri Lanka business through an acquisition and put it in the leadership position with 50%+ market share.

Previously, Abhik has worked with organisations such as Hindustan Unilever, RPG Group, TNT India, Spoton Logistics, and Delhivery. Abhik is a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Varanasi.

Girish Bhat

Girish Bhat joined Samara Advisors in 2017 as Managing Director, Operations Group. As operating partner, he works closely with the leadership of portfolio companies to transform, accelerate value creation and drive compliance. Girish helps in selecting, developing and mentoring Finance and IT leadership teams, help them to build business controls, systems and processes, establish effective ERP system and technology for business efficiency, enhanced risk management processes and strengthen Governance process for effectively operating portfolio companies like listed businesses. Girish also helps the deal teams on due diligence of target companies.

Previously, Girish worked with Cadbury Schweppes plc UK (FMCG Business) for over 28 years in various positions as CFO and Commercial Director for Cadbury India, Finance Director for Cadbury Beverages Europe, Finance Director Cadbury SEA (Bangkok), Director Assurance Cadbury Plc in UK. He worked as Group CFO for Gammon India (Infrastructure business) for 4 years and PE Advisory for international business for two years. In 2010 and 2011 he was recognized as “Top 100 CFO” in India and in 2015 as “CFO lead of Excellence” by CFO Magazine.

Girish is a Chartered Accountant (FCA) from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), Chartered Management Accountant (FCMA) from CIMA UK, Cost Accountant from Institute of Cost Accountants of India (ACMA) and a commerce graduate from Mumbai University. He has an Independent Director certification from Evaluation Board UK/ Hunt Partners India.

Abhishek Kabra

Abhishek Kabra joined Samara Advisors in July 2008 and has grown from an Associate to a Managing Director within the firm.

Abhishek has investment experience across the focus sectors for Samara Advisors and currently leads the investment vertical for Healthcare, NBFCs & SFBs and Consumer – Personal Care and Apparels sector. He currently serves on the board of Nature’s Essence, Spoton Logistics, Sahajanand Medical Technologies and Lotus Surgicals. He was previously associated with Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, RBL Bank, Global Coal and Sharekhan.

Prior to this, Abhishek was in the Equity Investments team of Reliance Asset Management (now Nippon Life Asset Management) which had an AUM of over USD 20bn in 2008.

Abhishek is an MBA from SPJIMR, Mumbai and a Master of Commerce from Mumbai University. He is also a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Anchit Gupta

Anchit Gupta joined Samara Advisors in May 2012 and is Managing Director, Investments in the firm.

He leads investments for the firm in certain sectors – Technology Services and Products, Pharmaceutical, Auto & Auto Ancillary and Media & Entertainment. He serves on the board of Cogencis, Oaknet Healthcare, SMS Integrated Facilities Management & Gamot (API Pharma platform) and is involved in More Retail Limited.

Previously, Anchit was at Kubera Partners and was involved in seven investments and two exits with more than USD100 million at work across sectors such as technology, media services, automotive ancillary, education and biotechnology. Prior to Kubera, he was an analyst with the corporate finance practice at McKinsey & Co.

Anchit has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Chicago and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Delhi University. He also holds an MS (Finance) and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charter from ICFAI University, Hyderabad.

Mansi Goel

Mansi Goel joined Samara Advisors in August 2024 as Managing Director for leading Fund Raising and Investor Relations.

Mansi completed her Bachelor in BA (Honours), Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and Master’s in Business Administration from NMIMS, Mumbai.

Mansi has more than 20 years of experience in building and managing Investor Relations across Investor categories and Product segments. She has extensive experience in BFSI segment and has worked in different domains such as Project Financing, Corporate Banking, Merchant Banking and Debt Capital Markets. She has worked with organizations like SBI Capital Markets, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited. She also co-led fund raising for Edelweiss groups companies in India & Southeast Asia and IvyCap Ventures, a large homegrown Venture Capital Fund.

Throughout her experience, she has built a large network of both Domestic and International Investor relationships covering Banks, Financial Institutions, Multi Laterals and Family Offices / Corporates in India, Southeast Asia and Middle East.

Prior to joining Samara Capital, Mansi led the Fund Raising and Investor Relations at CX Partners, a mid-market PE firm.

Nilay Pratik

Nilay joined Samara Advisors in March 2016 and is a Director at the firm. He focuses on investment evaluation in sectors such as consumer, business services, financial services and chemicals sectors.

Prior to Samara Advisors, he was with Aumentis Consulting, a management consulting firm. At Aumentis, Nilay worked on client engagements across consumer and retail space. For two years, he led the team which handled India operations of Mitsui Global Investments, the PE/ VC arm of Mitsui Corporation of Japan. He also worked for a year with Manhattan Associates in supply chain solutions.

Nilay holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode and a B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee.

Rahul Kapoor

Rahul Kapoor joined Samara Capital as Director – Operations in October 2024, where he will focus on collaborating with portfolio companies to drive improvements in their operational and financial performance.

Rahul has completed his MBA from Said Business School, University of Oxford as a Dean’s Scholar and he is a qualified Chartered Accountant with All India Rank in CA Intermediate and Finals. He has built his career in a variety of Finance roles, mostly in large Manufacturing companies and Consulting space.

As a senior Finance Leader & Strategic Business partner, with exemplary academic credentials, Rahul bring more than 18 years of deep expertise and demonstrable ability to drive complex business initiatives and execute strategic vision. His deep and extensive experience in Finance spans the rich tapestry of Investor Relations, Financial Advisory, Mergers & Acquisitions, Management accounting and corporate finance, Financial & Business control, Process design & improvements, and Corporate Governance & Statutory Reporting among other responsibilities.
Rahul’s analytical and problem-solving skills have been forged and sharpened at the Augean stables of several marquee organizations such as Ernst & Young, Reliance Industries Limited and Huntsman India International.

Prior to joining Samara Capital, Rahul led the FP&A, Commercial finance and Investor relations at Sapphire Foods India Limited.

Akshay Sethuram

Akshay joined Samara Advisors in 2024 as the Vice President Talent Acquisition & Management. In his role, Akshay is part of the Samara Operations Group and leads the Strategic Hiring and Key HR initiatives across the portfolio companies.

Prior to Samara, Akshay was responsible for the Talent Acquisition function at Tata Projects, where he was overseeing the Leadership Hiring across the organization. His previous experience includes consulting with Korn Ferry, where he gained significant experience managing niche executive searches for clients across sectors including automotive, chemicals, logistics & supply chain, infrastructure, metals & mining, manufacturing, and engineering.

Akshay is a graduate from Mumbai University and has completed his MBA in Human Resources.

Sameer Kulkarni

Sameer joined Samara Advisors in 2022 as a Vice President (ESG). He is responsible for conducting the ESG appraisal of prospective investments as well as the ongoing supervision of ESG performance of portfolio companies.

Prior to this, Sameer worked with MSCI where he was part of the ESG and Climate research team and focused on evaluating the emerging ESG regulations and the associated risks for companies. He started his professional journey as an ESG Consultant in 2012 and led ESG strategy and disclosure projects for clients across manufacturing, FMCG, energy and materials sector.

Sameer holds M. Tech in Energy Systems Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur.

Monika Kalyani

Monika joined Samara Advisors in 2023 as a Vice President and focusses on Healthcare, Logistics, Financial services, and Retail sectors.

Prior to Samara, she has worked with FirstMeridian as the head of Strategy and Corporate Development. Earlier, she was an Investment Banker with Avendus in their Mumbai office, advising companies on their fund-raising, organic and inorganic growth plans primarily in the Digital and Technology sector.

Her last stint was with Flipkart focussing on both financial and strategic Investments.

Monika is a graduate from Delhi University and has completed her MBA from SPJIMR, Mumbai.

Snehal Singhania

Snehal joined Samara Capital in 2020 as an Investment Associate in the firm. Prior to joining Samara, he worked in the Investment Banking team at Avendus Capital for 2 years. At Avendus, Snehal primarily focused on consumers and business services sector, closing transactions in food & beverages and logistics companies. Snehal holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata.

Arjun Singh

Prior to joining Samara Capital in 2020, Arjun worked with Kotak Investment Bank for 3 years. He was involved in M&A/Capital Market transactions across sectors like Industrials, Automotive, Consumer, Financial Services and IT. Arjun has completed his MBA from IIM Calcutta where he was a top-ranking student and finished his engineering from Delhi College of Engineering.

Pratik Shah

Pratik joined Samara Advisors in May 2019. As a Financial Controller, Pratik is responsible for all accounting, compliance and reporting functions at Samara Advisors.

Prior to joining Samara Advisors, Pratik worked at PwC in its Assurance division for nearly 10 years. Pratik specialized in financial services and his clients included venture funds, non-banking finance companies, broking companies and banks. His area of work included statutory and tax audit, group reporting and internal controls review. He also has experience in US GAAP/ GAAS.

He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Graduate in Commerce from N. M. College of Commerce & Economics affiliated to Mumbai University.

Dipali Goradia

Dipali R. Goradia assumed the role of Head of Internal Audit at Samara Capital in February 2024.

With over 13 years in the field, Dipali is a seasoned Internal Audit leader who has consistently demonstrated her proficiency in optimizing financial and operational efficiencies across diverse industries. Her track record includes successful leadership of audit teams, adept risk identification, and the implementation of robust control measures.

Prior to joining Samara Capital, Dipali played a pivotal role in the Internal Audit Division of Bayer Global, a German conglomerate with diversified business into healthcare and agriculture. In this role, she concentrated on enhancing financial and operational efficiencies, identifying risks, implementing robust control measures, and conducting compliance-related fraud investigations.

Dipali commenced her professional journey in 2011 with KPMG, majorly with Hindustan Unilever Limited – Home and Personal Care (as a client of KPMG) and subsequently worked with Essar Oil Limited. During this period, she led Internal Audit assignments for clients spanning manufacturing, FMCG, Oil & Gas and Service Sector industries.

Dipali holds a Chartered Accountant degree from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai University.

Sneha Ghuriani

Sneha joined Samara in February 2022 as Manager (Legal and Secretarial) to strengthen Samara’s legal, governance and compliance functions. She works closely with Company Secretaries of portfolio companies to build governance processes and drive secretarial compliances.

Previously, she has worked with Samara portfolio companies – Witzig Advisory and SMS and led their legal and secretarial departments. She has also appeared before the Bombay High Court and handled arbitrations during her stints with law firms. She has got her articles published in various esteemed journals including Taxmann.com and Corporate Law Adviser magazine.

Sneha is a Company Secretary from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and is a law graduate from ILS Law College, Pune.

Shreyansh Agarwal

Prior to joining Samara Capital as an Investment Analyst, Shreyansh worked with the Investment Banking team at Deutsche Bank for over a year where he was involved in M&A/Financing transactions across diversified industrials sectors including Automotive and Capital Goods. Shreyansh is a CFA Charterholder as well as a Chartered Accountant with an All India Rank 39

Arnim Dhakad

Arnim joined Samara Capital as an Investment Analyst in March 2024. Prior to this, he has worked with the Investment Banking teams at Avendus Capital and KPMG Corporate Finance for a period of two years. Was involved in various M&A deals, PE Fund raises and Capital Market transactions across Technology, Industrial, Pharmaceuticals sectors.

Arnim is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has completed his graduation from HR College, Mumbai.

Shilpa Gurnani

Shilpa Gurnani joined Samara Advisors in 2016 and as its finance manager, she is responsible for the accounting and financial operations of the company including preparation of periodic financial reports, maintenance of accounts, and managing a comprehensive set of controls. She is also responsible for managing transaction-processing operations and compliance reporting for the Company.

Previously, Shilpa worked with Globeop Financial Services Private Limited where she spent around 4.5 years in the fund accounting department.

Shilpa is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a commerce graduate from Mumbai University.

Dhimant Shah

Dhimant joined Samara Advisors as a Finance Manager in July 2024. Prior to this, he has worked with Finance & Accounts teams with Kotak AMC for nearly 5 years and with JM Financial Private Equity for 7 months. His major responsibilities were in the areas of financial reporting, fund accounting and compliances.

He is a Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and a Graduate in Commerce from M.K. Sanghavi College of Commerce & Economics affiliated to Mumbai University.

Lalita Saukur

Lalita is the Admin Manager and her responsibilities include general office administration, travel management, procurement, and facilities management. She joined the firm as an Executive Assistant in 2008 and continues to support the senior management in their business travel and time management.
Prior to joining Samara, Lalita worked with HSBC as a Customer Service Officer for four years.
Lalita holds a Post-Graduation degree from Mumbai University majoring in Political Science and ranked Second in the University. She completed her Bachelors in Arts, majoring in Economics and Political Science having secured First rank in the University.